What percent of law schools should close? Forum

[utlaw2007]

But then why do we need UH AND South Texas? Couldn't all these firm-starters go to UH instead if South Texas were closed? Neither has amazing employment, but I imagine if they didn't have the other to compete with, it'd be much better. And UH is public, so it seems more capable of having lower in-state tuition, and thus the better choice of the 2 to keep open. Oh, and I had said earlier I prob should have left TTech in the list as a lawyer source for rural Texas.

They wouldn't get into to Houston. That's why they went to South Texas in the first place. I can tell you if you closed South Texas, Houston and UT would not produce nearly enough lawyers to serve Houston. I live in Houston. That's my opinion. But that is based on real observation.

If they couldn't even get into UH, maybe we should be looking for different people to serve the legal needs of the community. Half of South Texas' class got under 153 (which is about the cutoff for the equivalent of 60% - a D - on the LSAT; Half of their class would've gotten an F on the LSAT is it gave out standard letter grades). If the lawyer need is so huge, why are their employment scores not higher? If that were really an issue, then in response to closing South Texas, UH could increase class size (thus beign forced to relax admissions standards a bit at the lower end) and it would be much more efficient. Plus South Texas' class size is way too big.

If you increased the size of U of H and relaxed the standards a bit, I'd be on board with that.

However, you can't tie success as a lawyer to success on the lsat. Some of the most successful lawyers I know went to South Texas. They wouldn't be so successful unless they were finding solutions to people's problems. But at the same time, some of the dumbest lawyers I have faced have gone to South Texas. They are completely dead weight. Most of its grads are. But yes, if U of H was allowed to expand it's class size and relax the standards a bit, I'd totally be onboard with a South Texas closing.

Also, it's not that one needs to be smart to handle personal injury or family law cases. Anyone can do those, at least the bulk of them. South Texas produces most of the lawyers who take care of these legal needs. But if U of H was allowed to expand class sizes, that might be a solution.

[utlaw2007]

Texas has nine law schools. I've always contended that there are only three good ones in UT, Houston, and SMU.

Tech could serve west Texas, UT would primarily serve Austin and San Antonio, as well as Houston and Dallas. SMU would serve Dallas and Houston would serve Houston. I think that would be sufficient for Texas.

[20141023]

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[A. Nony Mouse]

Lowering tuition could potentially fix this issue because it would allow students to accept lower-paying jobs, but I don't see that happening anytime soon unless the government steps in and does something (which isn't going to happen).

But really, NONE of this conversation is going to happen - some schools may close in the next decade (?), but no one's going to be coordinating it, saying, "Keep that one, close this one," and so on. And I don't ever see as many schools closing as much of this conversation has been advocating (unless, say, the government steps in...).

(I'm also confused by the sudden emphasis on accredited schools because I don't think anyone in this thread has really been talking about unaccredited schools - I haven't seen anyone defending them.)

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Lowering tuition could potentially fix this issue because it would allow students to accept lower-paying jobs, but I don't see that happening anytime soon unless the government steps in and does something (which isn't going to happen).

But really, NONE of this conversation is going to happen - some schools may close in the next decade (?), but no one's going to be coordinating it, saying, "Keep that one, close this one," and so on. And I don't ever see as many schools closing as much of this conversation has been advocating (unless, say, the government steps in...).

(I'm also confused by the sudden emphasis on accredited schools because I don't think anyone in this thread has really been talking about unaccredited schools - I haven't seen anyone defending them.)

You are correct that the process of coordinating which schools should close would be impossible. I gave out some criteria by which you could do it, but they are arbitrary and someone could reasonably disagree with the underlying assumptions.

As far as a "more simple" answer goes, I'm drawn to come back to the minimum LSAT proposal. Suppose this were the ABA's dictate: View the LSAT as the first test of a prospective student's legal skills. To pass a test, you need to get 60 percent of the answers right. Getting 60 percent of the answers right on the LSAT entails about a 153. Therefore, anyone who can't pass the LSAT is not permitted to matriculate at an ABA school. If the LSAT maintains the same scale, then about half of the examinees per test fail it. Let's say that some will, upon second try, be able to score a 153, so we'll say about 60 percent of the current applicant pool (average LSAT 153ish) becomes eligible. That turns 68k applicants into 40k, and a bunch of TTT/TTTTs are forced to close. Then there are a few more requirements: The school has to prove a large majority of its graduates (say, 75 percent) have the ability to pay back its sticker debt in 10 years, or it loses accreditation. Any school found to be manipulating or making up its employment statistics loses accreditation.

Alternatively, if you don't think the ABA should be dictating which schools can and can't stay open, then I'll make the subsidy argument--anything that is not a sound investment for the taxpayers should not receive tax dollars. A school has to prove that a large majority of its applicants (say, 75 percent) can pay back their loans in full over 10 years, or it is not eligible for federal funding and neither are its students. This doesn't force any schools to close, but it stops putting federal money into the sinkholes that are TTTs. The problem is that the taxpayer is subsidizing legal education for students who, frankly, don't have the intellectual capabilities to be valuable enough to pay for the cost of their education (sorry, if you can't get a 150 on your LSAT, you aren't smart enough to practice law). Every employer knows this when it refuses to hire from a TTT because its graduates won't be able to do the work they require. This makes going to a TTT an extremely risky investment, and every lender either doesn't loan or charges a high interest for a risky investment, except of course the federal government, who couldn't possibly care less that the country is completely broke, because telling people they're too stupid for a loan isn't a good way to win votes.

No schools are thereby forced to close, just that the TTT students have to borrow at, say, 13 or 15 percent instead of 8 to reflect the higher level of risk, in the same way the riskier subprime mortgage borrowers are charged a higher interest rate. That's just common economic sense, which is something that seems to be lacking in this whole process: Every Economics 101 student could tell you that a subsidizing a good creates a surplus relative to market equilibrium (and creates a deadweight loss relative to its cost). Yet we have giant education subsidies, and a giant graduate surplus, and we're wondering what the problem is.

[20141023]

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[Borhas]

State bars can take away accreditation and not allow non accredited students tho sit for the bar. That would pretty much cause schools to shut down. That would probably lead to the remaining schools increasing tuition.

[AT9]

My qualifications would be something like...

Top 50/60 schools stay
The best law school outside the top 50/60 in each state stay (ex. OU in Oklahoma, USD in S. Dakota, Miami in FL, etc.).

This isn't based on any estimation of the actual demand, it just seems to make the most sense to me. Granted, under this system, I'd probably end up in the bottom 1/2 or 1/3 of remaining law schools....).

The proliferation of so many scam schools lowers the perception of the legal field in general, in my opinion. I used to think someone who could say "I'm going/I went to law school" was someone who could say that with pride and earn some intellectual respect. It seems all that it means now is that you graduated from a college and managed an LSAT score of maybe the 30th percentile or better (and that you're probably in major debt and will have a crappy job, if any).