Tell the ABA how to fix our Profession Forum

[North]

You're on TLS. That means you're probably one of the precious few law students and prospective law students who are truly informed about how bad the ABA has allowed legal education to get. Well, the Section on Legal Education has finally decided that it's time to make some real changes and are taking suggestions. We're the ones who are being hurt by the garbage policies that flooded the market with lawyers, so they need to hear from us.

Tell the ABA to stop accrediting terrible schools and revoke it from schools that can't get grads jobs. Tell them to stop letting TTTTs spew out misleading employment data to lure students into their traps. Tell them to require schools to reduce tuition. Tell them why it's important to us -- the next generation of lawyers -- that they do all that. I don't care what you say, but tell them something. Here's LST's letter. Here are the rest of the comments. Here's the home page. Type up a page in MS Word and send it to this guy:

• Art Garwin
  Deputy Director
  Center for Professional Responsibility
  American Bar Association
  art.garwin@americanbar.org

We're joining this festering profession, so let's at least try to fix what we know is wrong with it. Too many lawyers from shitty, profiteering schools, tuition rising eight times faster than inflation, and misleading sales pitches from TTTT's. Right now, there are only 110 comments. If 50 TLSers take the time to type something up, we'll have a formidable voice in the process. Do it. It's summer. You don't have anything else to do.

Let me know when you send something in and what topics you covered and I'll add you to the OP.


Useful Resources:
(Send me links to things you found useful in writing your letter and I'll compile them here.)

The ABA Solicits Views on Legal Education


The American Bar Association has been concerned with the impact on law schools of persistent weaknesses in the economy, rapid and substantial changes in the legal profession, and shortcomings in the delivery of legal education. To address these issues, the leadership of the ABA has commissioned a Task Force on the Future of Legal Education.

This nineteen-member body, which includes practitioners, judges, and working academics, is charged with making recommendations to the American Bar Association on how law schools, the ABA, and other groups and organizations can take concrete steps to address compelling issues concerning the economics of legal education and its delivery.

The Task Force is working through two subcommittees. One subcommittee is examining the potential for innovation and improvement in how law schools deliver education. The other subcommittee is examining the economics of legal education and its impact on individual graduates and the profession.

The specific questions addressed by these subcommittees can be found on the Task Force web site, http://www.americanbar.org/groups/profe ... ation.html.

Recognizing the gravity of the issues and compelling need for action, the Task Force has accelerated the timetable for completing its work. It aims to produce a report for the ABA to consider in mid-to late fall of 2013 (rather than in spring 2014 as original contemplated)
.
The Task Force will focus primarily on concrete proposals, rather than on a review of the current situation, since there already exists an abundance of useful analysis that can inform the search for solutions. The Task Force invites persons and groups interested in its work to submit written comments and suggestions to:

• Art Garwin
  Deputy Director
  Center for Professional Responsibility
  American Bar Association
  art.garwin@americanbar.org

Comments will be posted on the Task Force web site. The Task Force will also hold hearings and informational sessions. The times and places can also be found on the Task Force web site.

Thank you for your interest in the work of the Task Force on the Future of Legal Education and the important issues it is addressing.

Randall T. Shepard
Chair, Task Force on the Future of Legal Education and Chief Justice of Indiana (Ret.)

• nickb285 •

[CaptainLeela]

Welcome to TLS

[20141023]

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[philosoraptor]

After exams and papers are done, I will contribute. Thanks for posting about this, North. One suggestion: If people find useful facts to cite in their letters, we can post them here to make everyone's research more efficient.

[North]

Maybe this could get a slightly more formal title, if the mods deem it necessary (no offense whatsoever North) and a sticky so procrastinators like me will remember to do it when it gets buried later this summer?

This is important.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention

I was fishing for views with the title. Wanted something more exciting than "ABA seeks public comment."

Sticky is not a bad idea, at least until they close the comment period.

Damn North, you're on a roll. I will definitely be doing something about this.

Was hoping you'd respond. There are a lot of people on here who could probably just re-format posts they've made on TLS and send them in. That's what we need.

After exams and papers are done, I will contribute. Thanks for posting about this, North. One suggestion: If people find useful facts to cite in their letters, we can post them here to make everyone's research more efficient.

Good idea, do it.

[ph5354a]

Doing this, because I'm sick of getting sent anti-law school articles from relatives. If 150 law schools closed, that would probably stop.

[North]

If you tell me when you send it in, I will put you in a place of glory in the OP. Y'all know how I love to edit my OPs.

[BlueDiamond]

I think we definitely need a large group of people to send in comments. My only issue at the moment is that there are so many problems that I have no idea where to start. I feel like just writing "Please refer to Law School Transparency, any blogs or books written by Paul Campos, and the legal employment thread on top-law-schools. Thanks."

[North]

I think we definitely need a large group of people to send in comments. My only issue at the moment is that there are so many problems that I have no idea where to start. I feel like just writing "Please refer to Law School Transparency, any blogs or books written by Paul Campos, and the legal employment thread on top-law-schools. Thanks."

Just his a couple points that are most important to you. Hate that TTT's mislead students to get them to enroll? Write about that. Think accreditation should be tied to employment numbers? Write about that.

I was actually a little disappointed with LST's letter. Dude could have suggested so much more.

[Tom Joad]

I think most of the ABA Boomers graduated from TTTs.

[nickb285]

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[North]

I think most of the ABA Boomers graduated from TTTs.

They did, but it could be worse this term in the Section on Legal Ed. Here's the slate for the year decisions will be made on this:


Chair: (automatic under the Bylaws)
The Honorable Solomon Oliver Jr.
Chief Judge, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Ohio
New York University School of Law

Chair-Elect:
Joan S. Howland
Associate Dean & Professor University of Minnesota Law School
University of Santa Clara

Vice Chair
The Honorable Rebecca White Berch
Chief Justice Supreme Court of Arizona
Arizona State University

Members

Roger Dennis
Dean & Professor Drexel University Earle Mack School of Law

Jane H. Aiken
Associate Dean for Clinical Programs, Public Interest & Community Service & Professor
Georgetown University Law Center
New York University School of Law

Brigadier General Leo A. Brooks (retired)
Fort Belvoir, Virginia
Non-Lawyer, as far as I can tell

Paulette Brown
Partner and Chief Diversity Officer Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP
Seton Hall University School of Law


Edwin J. Butterfoss
Professor Hamline University Law School

Michael J. Davis
Professor University of Kansas School of Law
University of Michigan




Rebecca White Berch will be making those Sandra Day Swing Votes in DROVES.

[BlueDiamond]

Does anyone have somewhere I can find a list of which law school were given provisional or full approval within the last five years?

[philosoraptor]

Does anyone have somewhere I can find a list of which law school were given provisional or full approval within the last five years?

http://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal ... roved.html

[ETA URL.]

[BlueDiamond]

Does anyone have somewhere I can find a list of which law school were given provisional or full approval within the last five years?

http://www.americanbar.org/groups/legal ... roved.html

[ETA URL.]

haha damn.. poor researching by me.. thank you though

[philosoraptor]

haha damn.. poor researching by me.. thank you though

NP at all -- this is why it'll be good to start making a list of these things for everybody.

[BlueDiamond]

My new goal is for every footnote to be a cite to an ABA published article so that they can see they already know what the damn problem is

[North]

haha damn.. poor researching by me.. thank you though

NP at all -- this is why it'll be good to start making a list of these things for everybody.

Feel free to PM/post ITT stuff you find useful and I'll include it in the OP.

[justonemoregame]

Somebody tell Lila C. Milford to shut her yapper. And come back in two years and ask how her classmates are managing their loan debt.

http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/ ... eckdam.pdf

[justonemoregame]

Also, did Joan S. Howland pick this gem from the submissions and upload it to the website herself?

[CaptainLeela]

Welcome to TLS

[20141023]

.

[kay2016]

Tagging for later

[Tekrul]

Nice post, North. Thanks for making the thread.

I do have to say, though, lowering tuition is not the right solution. (I will be looking for the paper and linking it here when I find it) Leading economists have stated that the price war between UG schools is what has created the flood of worthless B.A.'s and B.S.'s nationwide that has literally made graduate school necessary for the kinds of jobs UG used to secure. College is the new high school in America and this trend is not seen in other leading nations. It's because schools can undercut one another in price that allows TTT's to exist even though their degrees are not worth more than the paper they're printed on. Discount education is harmful to everyone.

Starting from the top, why might a Harvard admittee choose to go to Columbia? Perhaps for a full ride.
At the first ranking threshold, why might a Georgetown admittee choose to go to UT? Perhaps for a full ride.
Why TT instead of T1? " "
Why TTT instead of TT? " "

This trend continues all the way down the chain until we reach the last ABA accredited school.

Scenario:
If law school's nationwide were to cut tuition costs by, say, 50% due to this ABA initiative - using very rough correlation, we could could see the number of people who see a legal education as viable and affordable increase by 50%. An increased applicant pool while also reducing the number of schools is an untenable situation. Untenable only because a market will have been created and this market will not go untapped as long as Americans live and breathe. This will cause the creation of TTTT schools to offer these students a place to go at all, where they may not have had the opportunity.

This is what caused the proliferation of TTT UG's and continuing to do it in the law school world will perpetuate/reopen the TTT law schools. It is at this point that economies of scale will start to play winner. By artificially reducing the price of tuition, we will be looking at smaller and smaller student:faculty ratio. Yes, this ratio is already too high to begin with which is why tuition costs have become greater than in the past adjusted for inflation, but it also means the model of top law schools can be copied more easily. What happens when 50% of a top law school's star faculty gets axed? They will invariably displace others downwards at lower ranked schools until we have 1,000 law schools, all with the same abysmal student to faculty ratio, star faculty members, and a flood of worthless J.D.'s simply due to the number being printed. At this point, what is the difference between a top law school and a TTT? Well, if it's not in their faculty, it's mostly in the price. And when this is the model at the top and the bottom, the distinction between what makes Harvard so great will become blurred when half of its faculty had to leave and take up office at a next-door law school. Does Harvard become worse? Does this other school become Harvard 2.0? It's hard to see where the ABA accreditation distinction will come in since the only meaningful statistic we will be left with is the GPA and LSAT medians of the schools and nobody will accept that as a threshold.

It's tantamount to saying, nobody with below X.XX GPA and XXX LSAT shall become a lawyer. As much as that is pretty much the bottom line, the logical conclusion, the only solution to the glut of J.D.'s, society will not accept that as an option.

This was an appropriation of the arguments used in the paper I mentioned, which was focused with UGs, to apply to law school. I find its argument extremely compelling, perhaps I didn't do it justice in my post. Seriously, I'm still looking for it, I can't remember its name for the life of me.

[nickb285]

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