Top Law Schools

"a commitment to progressive social change"

"Thus, if you want to be a prosecutor or a corporate attorney, don't waste our time applying; there are plenty of other schools out there for you!"

"the only non-competitive, cooperative, student and community-run, progressive law school in the world!"

From the POCL website.Thier level of arrogance is astounding considering thier circumstances. It seems like they are just a backwards, idealogically juvenile institution. How is it that a prosecutor can be seen as something not good and commited to changing the community?

Here is POCL's ad as far as I see it:

"do you hate THE MAN? Come on down here and give us your money, we'll teach you how to kick his ass!"

If they actually wanted to change the community they would grow the hell up, learn to play the game, and become a REAL force of change raising money to send kids to real law school instead of tricking them out of four years of thier lives in the name of "progressive change".

I think Columbia has plenty of progressives to don't they?

nealric wrote:

i saw that the other week - I loved it! i cant believe that guy took the bar 42 times. i mean, he's got to have some kind of reading problem or something. im pretty sure a parakeet could pass the bar if it had 42 cracks at it.

The problem I see is that the more or less open admissions requirements set certain students up to fail. There are essentially no academic requirements other than two years of passing college grades (or two years worth of CLEP credits). It appears a huge percentage of matriculants never end up practicing.

What I would really like to see is a law school organized around a similar model (volunteer instructors, very low tuition) without such a strong political agenda- but with admissions requirements that would allow for a reasonably high bar passage rate- and with higher quality instruction. As it is, adjuncts teach here at GULC for a whopping 1.5k a semester. Some of these adjuncts make in excess of $1M a year in their full time careers (in which they are often quite distinguished). If these same adjuncts donated their time to a school devoted to public interest, they could do a lot of good.

The problem is when you start saying reasonable admission requirements you start excluding the type of people who would most benefit from this type of school. If you start requiring LSAT scores, even relatively low ones, you start pricing people out (because of the cost of prep, and if they do good they could go to an accredited school). I don’t see why they can’t just stay like it is, unaccredited open entry and let people try, if they don’t pass the bar well its not like that’s going to affect the schools accreditation anyway. The people who do pass the bar, well then they are the ones who benefited who could not have gone to any other school.

I agree with what your saying would be the ideal, and schools could do this if they offered scholarships to PI students who had to sign a contract to do PI for X years or pay it back. But the incentive is not there for schools to do this when they can use that money to boost their numbers/rankings. Its going to take rich alumni creating sholrihips just for PI folks and telling the schools only to use their money for that. Until then I think you need to have open entry schools like this to give people the option if they want to take it. I mean in my state there is no unaccredited option, so you can’t sit for the bar unless you went to an accredited school, and that alone keeps lots of folks out of the profession who can’t afford even the cheapest law schools.

If you start requiring LSAT scores, even relatively low ones, you start pricing people out (because of the cost of prep, and if they do good they could go to an accredited school).

I wouldn't necessarily suggest that they start requiring the LSAT. Would I would suggest is requiring more than a bare minimum of academic achievement. Perhaps a minimum college GPA and some demonstration of scholarly ability (a significant piece of writing, for example). I think most of the people who do eventually pass probably could have made it at an ABA school but for various reasons (cost probably being the biggest) were unable to attend.

nealric wrote:

If you start requiring LSAT scores, even relatively low ones, you start pricing people out (because of the cost of prep, and if they do good they could go to an accredited school).

I wouldn't necessarily suggest that they start requiring the LSAT. Would I would suggest is requiring more than a bare minimum of academic achievement. Perhaps a minimum college GPA and some demonstration of scholarly ability (a significant piece of writing, for example). I think most of the people who do eventually pass probably could have made it at an ABA school but for various reasons (cost probably being the biggest) were unable to attend.

I don't understand the cost argument. The cost of PCOL is 4,000 a year. I have to think that if you are in an economic situation bad enough to where you can't afford to buy preptests for the LSAT, you can expect to qualify for need based scholarship from plenty of state schools. I can promise you if a girl from a poor family in a gang-filled area of LA works her but off and gets even a 150 on the LSAT there will be tons of schools chomping at the bit for her. Who doesn't love that story? Sotomayor style.

Plus, even if I am poor and I take the LSAT and take a loan to go to one of the cheaper public schools, I would rather be 30,000 in debt with an actual valuable degree, than 12,000 - 16,000 in debt with nothing.

It seems like this school is just manipulating people with ideological talk and turning around and taking advantage of the fact that they aren't educated about the process enough to see the quality of the product they are buying.

Its a scam.

Philo38 wrote:

nealric wrote:

If you start requiring LSAT scores, even relatively low ones, you start pricing people out (because of the cost of prep, and if they do good they could go to an accredited school).

I wouldn't necessarily suggest that they start requiring the LSAT. Would I would suggest is requiring more than a bare minimum of academic achievement. Perhaps a minimum college GPA and some demonstration of scholarly ability (a significant piece of writing, for example). I think most of the people who do eventually pass probably could have made it at an ABA school but for various reasons (cost probably being the biggest) were unable to attend.

I don't understand the cost argument. The cost of PCOL is 4,000 a year. I have to think that if you are in an economic situation bad enough to where you can't afford to buy preptests for the LSAT, you can expect to qualify for need based scholarship from plenty of state schools. I can promise you if a girl from a poor family in a gang-filled area of LA works her but off and gets even a 150 on the LSAT there will be tons of schools chomping at the bit for her. Who doesn't love that story? Sotomayor style.

Plus, even if I am poor and I take the LSAT and take a loan to go to one of the cheaper public schools, I would rather be 30,000 in debt with an actual valuable degree, than 12,000 - 16,000 in debt with nothing.

It seems like this school is just manipulating people with ideological talk and turning around and taking advantage of the fact that they aren't educated about the process enough to see the quality of the product they are buying.

Its a scam.

I don’t know what the makeup is of the typical PCL class, but I highly doubt its your average law school applicant fresh out of UG. I would guess they attract a more non-traditional student who may not be able to quit their job, or have crappy credit, or have kids to take care of or can’t move or whatever. I don’t think they are pulling anyone away from the standard law school routine that would really have that option in the first place.

Matthies wrote:

Philo38 wrote:

nealric wrote:

If you start requiring LSAT scores, even relatively low ones, you start pricing people out (because of the cost of prep, and if they do good they could go to an accredited school).

I wouldn't necessarily suggest that they start requiring the LSAT. Would I would suggest is requiring more than a bare minimum of academic achievement. Perhaps a minimum college GPA and some demonstration of scholarly ability (a significant piece of writing, for example). I think most of the people who do eventually pass probably could have made it at an ABA school but for various reasons (cost probably being the biggest) were unable to attend.

I don't understand the cost argument. The cost of PCOL is 4,000 a year. I have to think that if you are in an economic situation bad enough to where you can't afford to buy preptests for the LSAT, you can expect to qualify for need based scholarship from plenty of state schools. I can promise you if a girl from a poor family in a gang-filled area of LA works her but off and gets even a 150 on the LSAT there will be tons of schools chomping at the bit for her. Who doesn't love that story? Sotomayor style.

Plus, even if I am poor and I take the LSAT and take a loan to go to one of the cheaper public schools, I would rather be 30,000 in debt with an actual valuable degree, than 12,000 - 16,000 in debt with nothing.

It seems like this school is just manipulating people with ideological talk and turning around and taking advantage of the fact that they aren't educated about the process enough to see the quality of the product they are buying.

Its a scam.

I don’t know what the makeup is of the typical PCL class, but I highly doubt its your average law school applicant fresh out of UG. I would guess they attract a more non-traditional student who may not be able to quit their job, or have crappy credit, or have kids to take care of or can’t move or whatever. I don’t think they are pulling anyone away from the standard law school routine that would really have that option in the first place.

True enough, but if somebody can afford the time and money to do PCL they should be able to do the same somewhere else where they actually get something for their money and time. Law schools LOVE nontraditional applicants, especially in low socio-economic URM categories.

This is true. But you need to have a BS/BS for most law schools, and if you can’t move out of LA what are the options there for PT (I don’t know, never looked at LA)? Again in my mind PCL would be made of people really on the lower ends of the economic level. The people getting by on minimum wage, new immigrants, ESL folks. At least that is what I picture the enrolment being like.

This is fascinating. I've always been curious about this school. Back in the 70s I wrote to request admissions info. I knew I wasn't going to go there, but I was curious after reading an article about the school somewhere. The answer from the school came back saying that I needed to request info through one of the student organizations, such as the gay students org, the black students org, the hispanic students org, and so forth. The school has essentially no staff. Admissions is handled by students. You identify the group that you belong to and seek admission thru it. I had one of my gay friends write to ask the gay students org for admissions info and he received a very nice, long, handwritten letter from the student who ran that organization telling him all about the school. There was no printed material other than the application and a form about finances and financial aid. I knew it was small but I had no idea it was just one room. You all are asking about job prospects for graduates. The people who go to school here really aren't doing it for jobs. They're doing it so they can do a better job of community organizing.
Thanks for posting this. I find it very interesting.

For those who mentioned the lady in A lawyer Walks into a Bar... she did eventually pass the bar. I don't know how many attempts it took, but the California Bar lists her as active and allowed to practice law in California. She was admitted in 2009.

http://members.calbar.ca.gov/search/mem ... x?x=264637

PCL isn't going to churn out any supreme court justices or biglaw partners... but it does give people who would not otherwise be able to afford it a chance to get a legal education. Is it Harvard quality? Of course not. Does it empower people to make a difference in their community? You betcha!

PCL probably goes more good for society than Cooley

prezidentv8 wrote:This has been the most fascinating discussion [on PCoL] I've seen on here in [strike]a long time[/strike]ever. Awesome.

Fixt

PCL probably goes more good for society than Cooley

+1

Matthies wrote:
The problem is when you start saying reasonable admission requirements you start excluding the type of people who would most benefit from this type of school. If you start requiring LSAT scores, even relatively low ones, you start pricing people out (because of the cost of prep, and if they do good they could go to an accredited school).

sorry for a late reply

prep for LSAT is not gonna price anyone out, if you have no money, you will get a free excess to LSAC (2 year memebership+4 free reports) and get a free superprep LSAT text book, with this and a material from internet you can train yourself.
I mean no one need to take a fancy prep course for 1500 to get ready .

ICE should camp out by the front door.

K.R.I.T. wrote:ICE should camp out by the front door.

Great post.

Wait a minute...

I lol'd

Delicious.

Bump! Good luck on the bar exam everyone!

Would like to point this out again too:

Sangiovese wrote:PCL isn't going to churn out any supreme court justices or biglaw partners... but it does give people who would not otherwise be able to afford it a chance to get a legal education. Is it Harvard quality? Of course not. Does it empower people to make a difference in their community? You betcha!

PCL probably goes more good for society than Cooley

this is a great thread

RIP Matthies

Best TLS post ever. I really enjoyed reading this.

I just stumbled upon this gem as well. One of the bests posts on TLS!

Thomas Hagan, ESQ. wrote:I just stumbled upon this gem as well. One of the bests posts on TLS!

+1 entertaining read

Hello All, I am a current student at PCL. If anyone has specific questions I am happy to answer.

Kevin, is that you?