Why is there continual bashing of T3 & T4 schools? Forum

[GATORTIM]

people here use the employment prospects to show that these schools are bad investments for at least a significant number of their students. Because people are also insecure and douchey they go one step further and use insults. Unfortunately the internet is not a bastion of civility, it's more or less a bunch of dumb kids rattling off snarky comments for their own entertainment.

This

[Always Credited]

First, quality of education =/= job prospects in academia. I don't understand how you are defining it, but I mean the quality of the instruction is still comparable at a T4 to a T14. The pace might be slower and quality of discussion a bit lower, but the curriculum, content, and textbooks are all going to be identical. Plus, outside of Yale and Harvard, academic job placement is pretty much a crapshoot, so unless you are willing to admit that USC grads and Tulsa grads are also all ill-educated at essentially the same level, your argument fails within its own false pretext.

84Sunbird2000,

Thank you for your well thought out response, and I appreciate you backing me up, I am ignoring those comments that doubt what I wrote or question it as a flame, especially the idiotic comments by some, I'm not trying to cause this mini controversy, just trying to get answers to serious questions regarding schools outside of the top schools.

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[stintez]

I'm more interested in basketball, so I've been busy marvelling at Orlando's ridiculous blowout of Atlanta

GO CAVS!!!!!!

[jlnoa0915]

people here use the employment prospects to show that these schools are bad investments for at least a significant number of their students. Because people are also insecure and douchey they go one step further and use insults. Unfortunately the internet is not a bastion of civility, it's more or less a bunch of dumb kids rattling off snarky comments for their own entertainment.

This

My favorite part is that some of the bashing comes from uninformed 0Ls who have no knowledge of the legal market/real world outside of undergrad.

[Ryou]

To the OP:

I read an article once in which Justice Scalia was at a lower ranked Law School for some event. A student asked him what it would take for her to clerk at the Supreme Court. Scalia basically said it was impossible. He explained that he recruited from the top schools for his clerks because, "You can't make a sow's ear out of a silk purse."

Scalia reasoned that if the top schools recruit the best and brightest, then their graduates will be the best and brightest. He acknowledged that the level of instruction at the premiere law schools was not necessarily superior, but argued the quality of instruction was irrelevant. In the end he believed students were not going to be "ruined" by the instruction, so the most qualified matriculating classes would be also the most qualified graduating classes.

I'm not trying to argue whether or not Scalia's logic is sound, I'm trying to illustrate the mindset that exists. If it is a mindset at least one Supreme Court Justice holds, then there should be a reasonable risk that many employers will think the same way. Rightly or wrongly, the presumption will be that the reason you didn't attend a top school is because you couldn't get into one, which will then translate to the presumption you are less qualified.

I understand your education may be free, but there are no doubt opportunity costs that come along with dedicating three years to law school. If the employment prospects for your school's alumni are not good in general, what do you think a JD there will do for you specifically?

that doesn't mean the T4 candidate demeans the profession simply by possessing a JD.

He didn't say they were demeaning the profession, he said they de-valued the degree. And the laws of supply and demand empirically support this.

Years ago having a BA guaranteed a steady job and a sure leg up on everyone when going on the job hunt. Then we went through a cultural revolution where it became the norm for most people to get a degree unless there was some circumstances forcing them to enter the workforce immediately after HS graduation. As a result everyone has a BA, and the mass pursuit of higher education hasn't given job security to all, it has merely pushed the bar higher in terms of minimum education for a lot of positions.

Of course there are a multitude of benefits to society from a more educated populace, but the point being made was that a degree loses earning power when supply outstrips demand. And we need look no further than the BA to see how this pans out.

[D. H2Oman]

I'm more interested in basketball, so I've been busy marvelling at Orlando's ridiculous blowout of Atlanta

GO CAVS!!!!!!

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[DerrickRose]

To the OP:

I read an article once in which Justice Scalia was at a lower ranked Law School for some event. A student asked him what it would take for her to clerk at the Supreme Court. Scalia basically said it was impossible. He explained that he recruited from the top schools for his clerks because, "You can't make a sow's ear out of a silk purse."

And this was at American. A T1. They're playing a whole different ballgame at Touro.

[Always Credited]

To the OP:

I read an article once in which Justice Scalia was at a lower ranked Law School for some event. A student asked him what it would take for her to clerk at the Supreme Court. Scalia basically said it was impossible. He explained that he recruited from the top schools for his clerks because, "You can't make a sow's ear out of a silk purse."

And this was at American. A T1. They're playing a whole different ballgame at Touro.

In fact, it's THIS ballgame:

[DOS]

I worked w/LI cops in during a spell of previous employment so I will give you a serious answer.

1) Especially from Touro Law, you will make much more money in the police than you will as a typical Suffolk county lawyer. Although the grass is always greener on the other side, you will be surprised how many local lawyers envy police pay, benefits, and career stability.

2) Why Touro? Do you live in Riverhead? Why not Hofstra or St. Johns? Both those schools have better reputations. After 15 years schools will somewhat discount your grades based on Work Experience and a strong LSAT. If the reason you are choosing Touro is that after studying you cannot crack 151 on the LSAT then (no disrespect) maybe being a lawyer is not for you.

3) I know a girl who took a scholarship at Touro did very well there, was offered a job by a small firm and is now a partner there earning 80K. Sounds great, but you have to remember this is the best case scenario. By the way she regrets going to Touro and not a higher ranked school.

4) Touro grads are facing incredible competition. Long Island is not that big yet every county has its own Law School. Brooklyn, St. Johns, Hofstra, Touro (and I hear they are talking about having a Stonybrook Law School). Also every kid who strikes out in the big city because of the economy is now going to be heading home to moma to live rent free and search for a legal job in LI. There are a lot of Long Islanders at Fordham, GW, American, BU, Tulane, Miami, etc. and they all will be competing for your job.

5) The typical cop is very good at following procedures and checklists. If you are assuming that law school will be much the same but with bigger and more complicated things to memorize, you are mistaken. If you think that your actual legal knowledge will help you do better as a first year law student (1L) even in a criminal law class you are also mistaken. I knew a great deal of legal procedures from working with you guys and it did not help me at law school. It is an entirely different career and education.

Best of luck and it is only worth it to go to Touro under very special circumstances. Even Hofstra has no respect in the city and mixed respect on the Island.

-DOS

[GATORTIM]

there are no doubt opportunity costs that come along with dedicating three years to law school.

True, but there is also opportunity cost of sitting on your ass for 3 years, doing a job you fucking hate for 3 years or doing anything else for 3 years. There is no magical 3 year endeavor that will not be free of opportunity cost

[eldizknee]

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[GATORTIM]

there are no doubt opportunity costs that come along with dedicating three years to law school.

True, but there is also opportunity cost of sitting on your ass for 3 years, doing a job you fucking hate for 3 years or doing anything else for 3 years. There is no magical 3 year endeavor that will not be free of opportunity cost

I don't think you understand what opportunity cost is.

Oh, ok...nevermind then

[DoubleChecks]

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[Lawyerwannabe18]

I agree with what derrickrose said. It sucks to put it that way, but t3 and t4 law schools do lessen the value of the degree overall. If you look at med schools for example, getting into ANY med school is about as difficult as getting into a t14 for law. You have to have top grades in hard science, rock the mcat (30 is hardly competitive now, you're looking at 34+, which I imagine is roughly equivalent to scoring 169+ on the lsat), have solid extra curricular activities, physician shadowing, lab work etc. The pay off is that no matter where you go to med school (in the US) you're guaranteed a solid position.

As far as law school goes, all you need is a loan to be a lawyer. Of course lawyers don't have as much or as important an effect over other people's lives as doctors do, but they still play an important role in people's lives and society as a whole. It seems that if you want to be a lawyer then no problem you can be one. If you want to be a doctor you have to prove you deserve it. You can get more than half the lsat wrong and still get a JD. I know the correlation isn't perfect, but how would you feel if your doctor got half the med school entrance exam wrong?

Scary to think about. The ABA should just remove every school outside of the top 100

[pugalicious]

there are no doubt opportunity costs that come along with dedicating three years to law school.

True, but there is also opportunity cost of sitting on your ass for 3 years, doing a job you fucking hate for 3 years or doing anything else for 3 years. There is no magical 3 year endeavor that will not be free of opportunity cost

I don't think you understand what opportunity cost is.

Opportunity cost: the next-best choice.

So, choosing law school, your opportunity cost is (if you are out of school and employed): staying for 3 years at the job you hate enough to have applied to law school in the first place.

If you are in undergrad, your opportunity cost of attending law school: 3 years of living on your parent's couch, since there aren't any jobs for recent grads with History majors from Generic State University.

I don't see how the "opportunity cost" of attending law school (especially if said law school is free, as it is for OP) could possibly be used as an argument against going to law school. Any law school. Unless your current job is CEO of Google or something.

Also, OP sounds like an ideal political candidate, esp. after law school. Get a few years in prosecuting criminals, and run on a lower crime platform. Future Mayor of New York? Why not?

[Borhas]

I agree with what derrickrose said. It sucks to put it that way, but t3 and t4 law schools do lessen the value of the degree overall. If you look at med schools for example, getting into ANY med school is about as difficult as getting into a t14 for law. You have to have top grades in hard science, rock the mcat (30 is hardly competitive now, you're looking at 34+, which I imagine is roughly equivalent to scoring 169+ on the lsat), have solid extra curricular activities, physician shadowing, lab work etc. The pay off is that no matter where you go to med school (in the US) you're guaranteed a solid position.

As far as law school goes, all you need is a loan to be a lawyer. Of course lawyers don't have as much or as important an effect over other people's lives as doctors do, but they still play an important role in people's lives and society as a whole. It seems that if you want to be a lawyer then no problem you can be one. If you want to be a doctor you have to prove you deserve it. You can get more than half the lsat wrong and still get a JD. I know the correlation isn't perfect, but how would you feel if your doctor got half the med school entrance exam wrong?

Scary to think about. The ABA should just remove every school outside of the top 100

you know they still have to pass the bar

[jackalope11]

I've got not beef here, but came across the attrition rates for Touro. Sorry if this has already been posted, but they were ranked in 2008 as the school with the 2nd highest dropout rate in the country, at 37.4%.

For the OP, I have no bashing for T3 or T4 schools in mind. In fact, I strongly considered a regional T3 myself when making my LS decision. However, I would be very cautious about risking my dreams of a legal career against an almost 40% drop out rate. Even if some of this is section stacking or some other hidden reason, this is still an extremely high figure...

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog ... -ra-1.html For those who might like to check the source.

[Always Credited]

I agree with what derrickrose said. It sucks to put it that way, but t3 and t4 law schools do lessen the value of the degree overall. If you look at med schools for example, getting into ANY med school is about as difficult as getting into a t14 for law. You have to have top grades in hard science, rock the mcat (30 is hardly competitive now, you're looking at 34+, which I imagine is roughly equivalent to scoring 169+ on the lsat), have solid extra curricular activities, physician shadowing, lab work etc. The pay off is that no matter where you go to med school (in the US) you're guaranteed a solid position.

As far as law school goes, all you need is a loan to be a lawyer. Of course lawyers don't have as much or as important an effect over other people's lives as doctors do, but they still play an important role in people's lives and society as a whole. It seems that if you want to be a lawyer then no problem you can be one. If you want to be a doctor you have to prove you deserve it. You can get more than half the lsat wrong and still get a JD. I know the correlation isn't perfect, but how would you feel if your doctor got half the med school entrance exam wrong?

Scary to think about. The ABA should just remove every school outside of the top 100

you know they still have to pass the bar

Even with the bar exam currently acting as a half-ass filter, the profession is still grossly overpopulated. So your observation is irrelevant.

[Borhas]

so what does the profession being grossly overpopulated have with the scary thought that people who do shitty on the LSAT get to become lawyers?

Would it be a scary thought for a patient to have access to many doctors? No, that's what the patient wants.

My point was that the Bar at least works as a minimum requirement filter. There's a difference between what's bad for lawyers, and what's scary for the rest of society.

BTW I do think the profession is grossly overpopulated, and it sure as hell would be in my interest if it where otherwise.

[psychomohel]

Would it be a scary thought for a patient to have access to many underqualified doctors? No, that's what the patient wants.

Yes. It would be very scary.

[Always Credited]

so what does the profession being grossly overpopulated have with the scary thought that people who do shitty on the LSAT get to become lawyers?

Would it be a scary thought for a patient to have access to many doctors? No, that's what the patient wants.

My point was that the Bar at least works as a minimum requirement filter. There's a difference between what's bad for lawyers, and what's scary for the rest of society.

BTW I do think the profession is grossly overpopulated, and it sure as hell would be in my interest if it where otherwise.

Lets continue the example you gave about doctors.

If 10 'New Med Schools' were opened in the US and filled their classes with subpar MCAT/GPA students, the top 15% of those students would still likely qualify as doctors. Say each new class was 100 students. That's still 150 new doctors entering into the medical profession - as you say, this is good for patient and bad for doctors.

The next year, emboldened by the money the New Med Schools have made, 10 'Even Newer Med Schools' are opened. Again, they fill their classes with even less qualified students, and only the top 10% on average goes through to medical practice. This is now 100 more doctors added to the field. Several of these doctors are highly qualified professionals who took $$$ at the Even Newer Med School over, say, Hopkins, and has no trouble securing a job over candidates from higher ranked schools...

You can extrapolate the cycle from here. Eventually the medical profession would become overpopulated and actually a POOR investment to make in most cases, as law has now become. But it won't - why? Because new schools aren't allowed to open at will, with ridiculously sub-par standards of operation and accreditation relative to today's realistic standards.

[Borhas]

so what does the profession being grossly overpopulated have with the scary thought that people who do shitty on the LSAT get to become lawyers?

Would it be a scary thought for a patient to have access to many doctors? No, that's what the patient wants.

My point was that the Bar at least works as a minimum requirement filter. There's a difference between what's bad for lawyers, and what's scary for the rest of society.

BTW I do think the profession is grossly overpopulated, and it sure as hell would be in my interest if it where otherwise.

Lets continue the example you gave about doctors.

If 10 'New Med Schools' were opened in the US and filled their classes with subpar MCAT/GPA students, the top 15% of those students would still likely qualify as doctors. Say each new class was 100 students. That's still 150 new doctors entering into the medical profession - as you say, this is good for patient and bad for doctors.

The next year, emboldened by the money the New Med Schools have made, 10 'Even Newer Med Schools' are opened. Again, they fill their classes with even less qualified students, and only the top 10% on average goes through to medical practice. This is now 100 more doctors added to the field. Several of these doctors are highly qualified professionals who took $$$ at the Even Newer Med School over, say, Hopkins, and has no trouble securing a job over candidates from higher ranked schools...

You can extrapolate the cycle from here. Eventually the medical profession would become overpopulated and actually a POOR investment to make in most cases, as law has now become. But it won't - why? Because new schools aren't allowed to open at will, with ridiculously sub-par standards of operation and accreditation relative to today's realistic standards.

a few things, I'm going to ignore the poor investment angle, I think it's irrelevant to this question (though I agree with it)

the point is that to become a doctor you have to graduate from an accredited med school and gain and complete a residency. Those are minimum barriers independent of how well one does on the MCAT.

standardized test scores are meant to parse out different grades of prospective students, but they don't claim that there is a minimum score required to practice, there are entirely different set of requirements for that.

to become a lawyer (in most states) you have to go to graduate from accredited law school and pass the bar. Those are minimum requirements. And those criteria are regulated.

I'm not saying this is good for legal professionals. But, there are standards in place to make sure that if someone practices law, then that person is at least competent enough to be able to handle it.

Would it be scary if any Johnny Cheeseburger could set up his own law school and med school and pass out MD or JD degrees to anyone that paid? YES that would be horrible. But that's not what's going on with the T3 and T4's we usually talk about. These schools ARE accredited by the ABA, and if the students do graduate (a lot don't, which is why they have such high attrition rates aka another minimum req barrier) and if they do pass the bar then they have fulfilled our society's minimum requirements for claiming they can practice law. Now they may not be the best, or even very good, but they do meet the minimum requirement that we set.

[GATORTIM]

Generally speaking, the practice of medicine by a "bad doctor" versus the practice of law by a bad attorney and/or a TTT grad are not equal in terms of consequences if either fails

[Always Credited]

The problem is that the minimum requirement has not been updated to match current trends - this affects law more than medicine because law (ironically) took advantage of this situation to open a multitude of schools for pure profit, whereas medicine strictly regulated itself (again, ironic) to retain the value of the MD. No one can possibly argue that an MD is not worth more than a JD, and these differing tactics played a big role in that.

Now, our issue is whether or not the "minimum requirements" are good enough. Most on TLS seem to feel they are not, and that's why TTT's serving only to profit from tuition dollars should be shut down by the ABA.

Their operation devalues the JD's from legitimate schools. And yes, I'll go so far as to call many of those shitholes illegitimate. To the bleeding hearts of TTT's, I don't care. If a student is intelligent enough to succeed at a TTT, that student is intelligent enough to attend a better school and therefore should do so.

Preemptive argument against the anecdote of Little Lucy, the wondergirl with a 2.5GPA and 154 LSAT who was just bad at tests but WTFROCKED law school somehow, and she wouldn't have had a chance but for TTT's - life isn't fair, sorry. Little Lucy can go to hell. Think of the T14 grads who worked their ass off for 3 years and are now unemployed...that isn't ever cited as being "unfair".

[DerrickRose]

Preemptive argument against the anecdote of Little Lucy, the wondergirl with a 2.5GPA and 154 LSAT who was just bad at tests but WTFROCKED law school somehow, and she wouldn't have had a chance but for TTT's - life isn't fair, sorry.

There are thousands of would be doctors (and screenwriters, NBA players, politicians, pilots, army officers, you name it) who will tell you they would have been this person. 1% of them are right, and 0% of the real professionals care.