Indiana Tech Law School Forum

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androstan

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by androstan » Mon Oct 08, 2012 4:30 pm


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sunynp

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by sunynp » Mon Oct 08, 2012 5:38 pm

Dear dean of this unaccredited law school,

There was absolutely no need for this law school. The over supply of lawyers is well known and you are doing a disservice to your students by even opening this school.

Do you have any idea what the employment outcomes are for grads? Do you know that more than half don't get jobs? Which half of the line do you think your students will end up on? Do you realize that this forum is filled with posts from people from very top schools who can't find jobs? That great schools like Virginia have to give a huge percentage of their class fellowships just so they can count as employed?

Your school added a law school to boost its own perceived prestige and to get your hands on all that tuition the school will bring in. There is not a single benefit to anyone outside of the school administration. You are not providing a needed service. You are boosting your own egos and lining your own pockets.

If you had done any research into the benefits your grads will be getting in terms of employment, you would be ashamed to open this school.

Too bad for you that the days of the law school scam are slowly ending. You are the buggy whip maker starting up while the cars roll off the assembly line.

I wouldn't recommend anyone attend this school for free and with a stipend for living expenses. To pay money to attend this school would be a huge mistake.

timbs4339

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by timbs4339 » Mon Oct 08, 2012 6:33 pm

sunynp wrote:
If you had done any research into the benefits your grads will be getting in terms of employment, you would be ashamed to open this school.
Oh they did "research" all right

--LinkRemoved--

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finnandjake2

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by finnandjake2 » Mon Oct 08, 2012 7:05 pm

timbs4339 wrote:
sunynp wrote:
If you had done any research into the benefits your grads will be getting in terms of employment, you would be ashamed to open this school.
Oh they did "research" all right

--LinkRemoved--
Priceless. This report says that there is a brain drain from the state and that a fifth law school will keep more Indiana residents from leaving the state.

Thanks for the laugh.

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sunynp

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by sunynp » Mon Oct 08, 2012 7:21 pm

Here is a comment from Paul Campos blog post about this school ( campos references this very thread):
Fort Wayne attorney here. Thank you, LawProf for covering this school and for having this site.

Three weeks ago I spoke with a named partner at a well respected firm in Fort Wayne (~20 lawyers). He told me that he had received nearly 60 applications for associate positions and "can't even consider hiring a darn one. Even the ones from impressive schools."

Don't even consider a government or non-profit gig in Fort Wayne either. Those have dried up due to budget cuts.

At last year's local bar association meeting, the president of Indiana Tech announced the pursuit of this new law school. One attorney joked at the table behind me, "Haha! Great! Free Interns!" Don't expect anything full-time, especially enough to service that tuition bill, after graduation in this community.

Many other local practitioners laugh and roll their eyes when this new school is brought up in a conversation. It makes me sick to even think about what these graduates will experience even in this local market after graduation and ~$100K in debt. Not to mention the risk of not even getting an 'ABA approved' degree. Whatever that means anymore??
And another one:
Indiana Tech Law's website announced its first four faculty hires. Among them is andre douglas pond cummings, the new associate dean for academic affairs, lured from his faculty perch at West Virginia University College of Law. andre douglas pond cummings is so cool that he did not feel the need to capitalize any of his four names or shave his five o'clock shadow for his faculty pic.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/8/prweb9779060.htm

Even though law classes at Indiana Tech have not yet begun, andre douglas pond cummings and the other new faculty are "assisting our admissions staff in the recruitment of students." It is interesting that the finely-honed sense of social justice of these faculty is consistent with actively preying upon naive kids.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/8/prweb9779060.htm

Incidentally, andre douglas pond cummings appears to be quite the scholarly jetsetter. See e.g., this entry, from his CV:

Franklin College, Switzerland, Invited Panelist, “Thug Life: Hip Hop’s Curious Relationship With Criminal Justice,” Panel Presentation “Pop Culture and the Law,” Intersections of Law and Culture Conference 2009, Lugano, Switzerland, October 4, 2009 (With Akilah Folami and David Oppenheimer).

http://law.wvu.edu/r/download/119900

My question is this: How do actual criminal law practitioners-- ASAs and public defenders-- get aboard this gravy train to conferences in foreign ski resorts on criminal law and pop culture? Obviously, practice experience is not enough. Maybe it is a reward for that scholarly je ne sais quoi that comes with four uncapitalized names. Or maybe it is Judas pay for scholars who yap about social justice even as they swindle the naive kids who fill up law school classrooms.

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banjo

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by banjo » Mon Oct 08, 2012 7:48 pm

Someone should really develop SimLawSchool so boomers can play dean without actually hurting anyone. If you type in a cheat code you can get infinite money and beat yale in the SimNews annual rankings.

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North

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by North » Mon Oct 08, 2012 8:55 pm

I hope Dean Alexander comes back to tell us why TLS is wrong.

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by rad lulz » Mon Oct 08, 2012 8:55 pm

PCAlexander wrote:For those of you who are wondering about Indiana Tech Law School, I am the Founding Dean. Perhaps I can answer some of your questions. We are located in Fort Wayne and we open next August. We are enrolling only 100 students in our Charter Class.

We intend to be a new and different kind of law school, one that intentionally blends theory and practice and one that focuses on ethics from the very start of school.

We will require all students to complete a professionalism course in the first-year curriculum and two ethics courses, one of which will also be taught in the very first year of law school. This is an innovation that sorely needed in legal education although very few law schools offer an ethics course until much later in a law student’s career. We will also require students to perform 30 hours of pro bono volunteer hours, as an additional condition of graduation, to benefit the public and to instill in the students the inherent value in the legal profession helping those members of society who are in need. A wide variety of opportunities will be developed so that students will be able to complete the 30-hour requirement from the very beginning of their law school careers.

In addition to the curricular innovations, we will give students the option to specialize their education by concentrating their upper-level electives in a particular area. Concentrations are much like undergraduate “majors” and, at Indiana Tech, students will be able to receive a notation on their transcripts that they concentrated their studies in one of four areas if they choose: Advocacy/Dispute Resolution, Intellectual Property/Technology Law, Transactional Law, and Global Law and Leadership. In order to complete the requirements to receive a concentration, students must not only enroll in a certain number of hours of coursework, they must also actually practice law either in a law school clinic or in a full-time, 40-hours-per-week “semester-in-practice” internship with a member of the profession whose expertise is in that same area.

In at least half of our courses, and all of our first-year courses, students will also be given opportunities to hone their lawyering skills by engaging in “experiential learning exercises.” Professors will give up some class hours so that a judge or lawyer from our area can take over the class and bring in real life examples of the theory and history that the students will have been studying. The students will write client letters, draft wills, prepare court documents, etc. and the hope is that our graduates will be viewed as more “practice-ready” than other law school grads when they interview for jobs. We firmly believe that the intentional blending of theory and practice skills will make them better professionals.

Regarding GPA and LSAT medians, we don't have any history so we can't set them; however, we would like to open in third place among the five Indiana law schools so that would place our medians at approximately 156 for the LSAT and 3.5 for the GPA. Our tuition is $29,500 per year and we have academic scholarships available.

For more information, please visit our web-site at http://www.indianatech.edu/law or email me at PCAlexander@indianatech.edu.

Peter Alexander
Dean and Professor of Law
Thanks for taking Qs.

How does saddling students with vast amounts of non-dischargeable debt enable students to help the needy?

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sunynp

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by sunynp » Mon Oct 08, 2012 9:10 pm

North wrote:I hope Dean Alexander comes back to tell us why TLS is wrong.
I would love the chance to discuss it with him. However, I am pretty sure he only posted here for marketing purposes. Someone probably trolls the net to see where this unaccredited school is mentioned so they can respond. His post is full of meaningless marketing buzzwords designed to catch the attention of the naive and unwary student. He isn't soliciting our input. (but he has made it fair game for us to comment on his post)

I don't believe he has any interest in discussing his decisions or explaining them.

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JamMasterJ

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by JamMasterJ » Mon Oct 08, 2012 9:37 pm

sunynp wrote:
North wrote:I hope Dean Alexander comes back to tell us why TLS is wrong.
I would love the chance to discuss it with him. However, I am pretty sure he only posted here for marketing purposes. Someone probably trolls the net to see where this unaccredited school is mentioned so they can respond. His post is full of meaningless marketing buzzwords designed to catch the attention of the naive and unwary student. He isn't soliciting our input. (but he has made it fair game for us to comment on his post)

I don't believe he has any interest in discussing his decisions or explaining them.
lolyep, this thread is on page two of the google search "Indiana tech law school"

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Steve2207

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by Steve2207 » Mon Oct 08, 2012 9:53 pm

For the record Im still hoping I didnt bomb last Saturday, so I can get in IUPUI (my first choice). I know its far below what most people here get, but I will be happy with a 157, and a 155 will keep me from a retake in December! Its all about where I am, and where I want to be. Wish me luck! Even though at this point as a result of the crazy RC and the zoning game, im thinking I would be lucky to break a 150 despite my consist PT's that landed in the low 160's.

In response to overwhelming negative response about Indiana Tech, I wish all the best, but as I said earlier, replacing IUPUI is gonna be tough, especially at that sticker price!

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by zanzbar » Mon Oct 08, 2012 9:55 pm

R86 wrote:
Tuco Salamanca wrote:To be fair, he didn't say that they'd be changed for the better.
Right. I was trying to set someone up for a witty caption. Burying in debt or something like that... I guess I could be more explicit.

CAPTION CONTEST.

--ImageRemoved--
"Take away the suit, and this is what kind of job you will be able to get in 3 years"

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TheThriller

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by TheThriller » Mon Oct 08, 2012 9:55 pm

Steve2207 wrote:For the record Im still hoping I didnt bomb last Saturday, so I can get in IUPUI (my first choice). I know its far below what most people here get, but I will be happy with a 157, and a 155 will keep me from a retake in December! Its all about where I am, and where I want to be. Wish me luck! Even though at this point as a result of the crazy RC and the zoning game, im thinking I would be lucky to break a 150 despite my consist PT's that landed in the low 160's.

In response to overwhelming negative response about Indiana Tech, I wish all the best, but as I said earlier, replacing IUPUI is gonna be tough, especially at that sticker price!
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Samara

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by Samara » Mon Oct 08, 2012 9:55 pm

Steve2207 wrote:For the record Im still hoping I didnt bomb last Saturday, so I can get in IUPUI (my first choice). I know its far below what most people here get, but I will be happy with a 157, and a 155 will keep me from a retake in December! Its all about where I am, and where I want to be. Wish me luck! Even though at this point as a result of the crazy RC and the zoning game, im thinking I would be lucky to break a 150 despite my consist PT's that landed in the low 160's.

In response to overwhelming negative response about Indiana Tech, I wish all the best, but as I said earlier, replacing IUPUI is gonna be tough, especially at that sticker price!
If you can't get into IUPUI, don't go to law school. It's that simple. Good luck, dude.

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sunynp

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by sunynp » Mon Oct 08, 2012 9:56 pm

Re caption contest....

Please send this to ATL as a caption contest that they run. This could be great.

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Steve2207

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by Steve2207 » Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:03 pm

TheThriller wrote:
Steve2207 wrote:For the record Im still hoping I didnt bomb last Saturday, so I can get in IUPUI (my first choice). I know its far below what most people here get, but I will be happy with a 157, and a 155 will keep me from a retake in December! Its all about where I am, and where I want to be. Wish me luck! Even though at this point as a result of the crazy RC and the zoning game, im thinking I would be lucky to break a 150 despite my consist PT's that landed in the low 160's.

In response to overwhelming negative response about Indiana Tech, I wish all the best, but as I said earlier, replacing IUPUI is gonna be tough, especially at that sticker price!
Are you currently an Indiana resident/eventual goal to live and practice in Indiana?
Yeah Im a resident, and have done alittle networking already in Indiana with some local firms.
Last edited by Steve2207 on Thu Oct 11, 2012 12:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by paradox » Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:06 pm

It is risky for any applicant to attend an unaccredited law school.

Please consider the position that the 100+/- law students at the newly formed Lincoln Memorial School of Law (Tennessee) are now in since the American Bar Association rejected the school's bid for accreditation in December 2011.

It appears that Indiana Teck and Lincoln Memorial University have similar small endowments to spend for accreditation. US News reports that Lincoln Memorial had an endowment of $29,887,916. The 2009 NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments. indicates that Teck had an endowment of $28.1M.

My sincere advice is that you steer clear of any law school that is not yet ABA accredited since there is no guarnaty that accrediation will follow.

Good luck.

Links:
Lincoln Memorial University School of Law
http://www.lmunet.edu/law/

ABA declines accreditation of LMU School of Law
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/23/busin ... .html?_r=0

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sunynp

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by sunynp » Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:12 pm

Steve2207 wrote:
TheThriller wrote:
Steve2207 wrote:For the record Im still hoping I didnt bomb last Saturday, so I can get in IUPUI (my first choice). I know its far below what most people here get, but I will be happy with a 157, and a 155 will keep me from a retake in December! Its all about where I am, and where I want to be. Wish me luck! Even though at this point as a result of the crazy RC and the zoning game, im thinking I would be lucky to break a 150 despite my consist PT's that landed in the low 160's.

In response to overwhelming negative response about Indiana Tech, I wish all the best, but as I said earlier, replacing IUPUI is gonna be tough, especially at that sticker price!
Are you currently an Indiana resident/eventual goal to live and practice in Indiana?
Yeah Im a resident, and have done alittle networking already in Indiana with some local firms, I really think IUPUI isnt that bad of a school despite its ranking, and the tuiton is reasonable. Im also sending an app to SIU carbondale (Iknow this will get alot of criticism, but I assure you Im not a troll).
Carbondale has pretty cheap tuiton too, and I could settle for it for a second as its close to me and I could still practice in southern Indiana. I have considered Valporaso aswell, but frankly cant afford it unless Im offered a signifacant scholarship. Im hoping I score well enought that that app wont have to go out.
When you get your score,post a thread asking about where you should go. We do understand the regional nature of hiring and keeping costs down. We might be able to help you.

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Steve2207

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by Steve2207 » Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:18 pm

When you get your score,post a thread asking about where you should go. We do understand the regional nature of hiring and keeping costs down. We might be able to help you.[/quote]

I intend to do that, Im always curious as to what people here have to say.Although I will admit alot of people here seem pessimistic to me. If I get the 157 Iknow Im in IUPUI so hopefully it will turn out that way. If I get a 155, or maybe even a 154 I will ED IUPUI and hopefully that will improve my chances.
Last edited by Steve2207 on Thu Oct 11, 2012 12:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Samara

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by Samara » Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:22 pm

Steve2207 wrote:
When you get your score,post a thread asking about where you should go. We do understand the regional nature of hiring and keeping costs down. We might be able to help you.
I intend to do that, Im always curious as to what people here have to say.Although I will admit alot of people here seem pessimistic to me. If I get the 157 Iknow Im in IUPUI so hopefully it will turn out that way. If I get a 155, or maybe even a 154 I will ED IUPUI and hopefully that will improve my chances. One of my LOR's is from a sitting judge that is also a Indy grad, so im hoping that combined with an ED (if I did bad) will be enough to get me in the door! Im still not feeling good about how I did Saturday, I dont know if thats normal, or a bad sign at this point.
People on here are pessimistic, but for good reason. The legal market is highly saturated, even in Indy. I know a lot of people at IUPUI. Some of them are doing great, but some of them are waiting tables. The ones I know that are doing well generally are ones with strong work experience that gave them a good starting point for networking in Indy. There are only a handful of spots available at Barnes & Thornburg, etc.

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by uvabro » Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:23 pm

is indiana tech actually a tier 2? are u confusing it with indianapolis?

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by timbs4339 » Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:24 pm

Steve2207 wrote:
When you get your score,post a thread asking about where you should go. We do understand the regional nature of hiring and keeping costs down. We might be able to help you.
I intend to do that, Im always curious as to what people here have to say.Although I will admit alot of people here seem pessimistic to me. If I get the 157 Iknow Im in IUPUI so hopefully it will turn out that way. If I get a 155, or maybe even a 154 I will ED IUPUI and hopefully that will improve my chances. One of my LOR's is from a sitting judge that is also a Indy grad, so im hoping that combined with an ED (if I did bad) will be enough to get me in the door! Im still not feeling good about how I did Saturday, I dont know if thats normal, or a bad sign at this point.
It's not necessarily that we think you won't get in, but a question of whether the time/debt is worth it. Even sticker at IUPUI is gonna run you 140K and 3 years out of the workforce.
Last edited by timbs4339 on Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Steve2207

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by Steve2207 » Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:24 pm

uvabro wrote:is indiana tech actually a tier 2? are u confusing it with indianapolis?
Indiana tech is unaccredited. IUPUI is tier 2

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KevinP

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by KevinP » Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:33 pm

Lol @ Indiania Tech's document (--LinkRemoved--)

@OP:
Either retake the LSAT and score well enough to go to UIUC for free (or higher ranked school) or don't go to law school.
Last edited by KevinP on Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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I.P. Daly

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Re: Indiana Tech Law School

Post by I.P. Daly » Mon Oct 08, 2012 10:42 pm

Sigh, law schools across the country are cutting class sizes because of a "grad glut," and yet more law schools are opening?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 18378.html

Seriously? What are you waiting for?

Now there's a charge.
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