Top Law Schools

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LSTfan wrote:7. Whittier

Percent Unemployed: 45.5%

Honestly, I think all these schools should close.

Defenders of schools like these (if they actually exist) could potentially argue that there is nothing wrong with the education these schools provide, and the poor employment stats are a product of the terrible economy. However, the real evidence of the terrible education these schools offer are the bar passage rates. At Whittier, for example, less than half of first time takers of the CA bar exam passed. LESS THAN HALF!!! What are these students learning over there???

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I like how the employment data adds to 100%. Are they trying to recruit people now who can't read charts? I'd be interested to see a good discussion on how these stand-alone for-profit schools can go about NOT folding this year (deceitful or legitimate). Even the unemployment data you show masks the true nature of the jobs they get. What percentage of schools are employed here work at McDonald's but are listed as full-timers?

LSTfan wrote:....Ratio of Solo to BIGLAW (100+): 5 to 5....Ratio of Solo to BIGLAW (100+): 12 to 10

ie, 1 to 1 and 6 to 5? yay simplifying

jump_man wrote:

LSTfan wrote:7. Whittier

Percent Unemployed: 45.5%

Honestly, I think all these schools should close.

Defenders of schools like these (if they actually exist) could potentially argue that there is nothing wrong with the education these schools provide, and the poor employment stats are a product of the terrible economy. However, the real evidence of the terrible education these schools offer are the bar passage rates. At Whittier, for example, less than half of first time takers of the CA bar exam passed. LESS THAN HALF!!! What are these students learning over there???

I also doubt that anyone who can't put in the time to achieve a 155+ would try any harder while studying for the bar.

GGU should be on this list. They do a great job of scamming people because of their location in SF.

ChampagnePapi wrote:GGU should be on this list. They do a great job of scamming people because of their location in SF.

putting aside the fact that this is a silly post, it is entitled the SO CAL TTT death poll

jump_man wrote:

LSTfan wrote:7. Whittier

Percent Unemployed: 45.5%

Honestly, I think all these schools should close.

Defenders of schools like these (if they actually exist) could potentially argue that there is nothing wrong with the education these schools provide, and the poor employment stats are a product of the terrible economy. However, the real evidence of the terrible education these schools offer are the bar passage rates. At Whittier, for example, less than half of first time takers of the CA bar exam passed. LESS THAN HALF!!! What are these students learning over there???

At the risk of sounding like a horrible human being, the big problem is not necessarily the education that people receive as much as the quality of students themselves. Let's be honest, even at the most "prestigious" places, tons of students learn on the basis of supplements, supplements that are equally available at the schools with the lowest passage rates. Property is property whether you take it at Harvard or somewhere else, it is not like the Harvard professor will let you know a big secret that students at other schools will not learn.

Pokemon wrote:

jump_man wrote:

LSTfan wrote:7. Whittier

Percent Unemployed: 45.5%

Honestly, I think all these schools should close.

Defenders of schools like these (if they actually exist) could potentially argue that there is nothing wrong with the education these schools provide, and the poor employment stats are a product of the terrible economy. However, the real evidence of the terrible education these schools offer are the bar passage rates. At Whittier, for example, less than half of first time takers of the CA bar exam passed. LESS THAN HALF!!! What are these students learning over there???

At the risk of sounding like a horrible human being, the big problem is not necessarily the education that people receive as much as the quality of students themselves. Let's be honest, even at the most "prestigious" places, tons of students learn on the basis of supplements, supplements that are equally available at the schools with the lowest passage rates. Property is property whether you take it at Harvard or somewhere else, it is not like the Harvard professor will let you know a big secret that students at other schools will not learn.

You're placing blame on lazy students rather than the law schools graduating 2.5 JDs per available job?

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A better start would be to shut down all the California Bar (non-ABA) accredited schools. They averaged 32% pass for the July 2012 exam. Not that this is a defense of those on the survey.

cahwc12 wrote:

Pokemon wrote:

jump_man wrote:

LSTfan wrote:7. Whittier

Percent Unemployed: 45.5%

Honestly, I think all these schools should close.

Defenders of schools like these (if they actually exist) could potentially argue that there is nothing wrong with the education these schools provide, and the poor employment stats are a product of the terrible economy. However, the real evidence of the terrible education these schools offer are the bar passage rates. At Whittier, for example, less than half of first time takers of the CA bar exam passed. LESS THAN HALF!!! What are these students learning over there???

At the risk of sounding like a horrible human being, the big problem is not necessarily the education that people receive as much as the quality of students themselves. Let's be honest, even at the most "prestigious" places, tons of students learn on the basis of supplements, supplements that are equally available at the schools with the lowest passage rates. Property is property whether you take it at Harvard or somewhere else, it is not like the Harvard professor will let you know a big secret that students at other schools will not learn.

You're placing blame on lazy students rather than the law schools graduating 2.5 JDs per available job?

I am talking about bar passage rates, not jerbs.

LSTfan wrote:

cahwc12 wrote:I like how the employment data adds to 100%. Are they trying to recruit people now who can't read charts? I'd be interested to see a good discussion on how these stand-alone for-profit schools can go about NOT folding this year (deceitful or legitimate). Even the unemployment data you show masks the true nature of the jobs they get. What percentage of schools are employed here work at McDonald's but are listed as full-timers?

This is why, as my name suggests, I am a huge fan of the law school transparency site, and the movement overall to force schools to provide more information.

If applicants had the real data re: where these grads are working, how much they are being paid, and how much debt they are carrying, all of the schools on my death poll would be gone in 5 years or less.

I agree that schools should be required to provide detailed un-manipulated audited employment data. However, cognitive psychologists and behavioral economists have amply demonstrated that, even when armed with all the information (actually sometimes being informed = worse decisions), people still make poor decision due to the optimism bias and the overconfidence bias. What this means is that in addition to requiring disclosure, we really need some type of substantive regulation, whether that is an analysis of who is likely to be able to repay government loans before they are lent or whether it is requiring the schools to have some skin in the game or both or something else.

somewhatwayward wrote:

LSTfan wrote:

cahwc12 wrote:I like how the employment data adds to 100%. Are they trying to recruit people now who can't read charts? I'd be interested to see a good discussion on how these stand-alone for-profit schools can go about NOT folding this year (deceitful or legitimate). Even the unemployment data you show masks the true nature of the jobs they get. What percentage of schools are employed here work at McDonald's but are listed as full-timers?

This is why, as my name suggests, I am a huge fan of the law school transparency site, and the movement overall to force schools to provide more information.

If applicants had the real data re: where these grads are working, how much they are being paid, and how much debt they are carrying, all of the schools on my death poll would be gone in 5 years or less.

I agree that schools should be required to provide detailed un-manipulated audited employment data. However, cognitive psychologists and behavioral economists have amply demonstrated that, even when armed with all the information (actually sometimes being informed = worse decisions), people still make poor decision due to the optimism bias and the overconfidence bias. What this means is that in addition to requiring disclosure, we really need some type of substantive regulation, whether that is an analysis of who is likely to be able to repay government loans before they are lent or whether it is requiring the schools to have some skin in the game or both or something else.

Regulation would be awesome. In Korea, there are regulations to the class sizes and law schools. Total enrollment cannot exceed 2,000 for all schools in a given year, and there can only be 25 law schools in the country. Korea's population is 50 million...

Could you imagine if we only had like 100 law schools with a maximum of 12,000 admits in a given year? (They manage this by placing each school in a category with a cap, ranging from 40 to 150 students.)

cahwc12 wrote:

Pokemon wrote:

jump_man wrote:

LSTfan wrote:7. Whittier

Percent Unemployed: 45.5%

Honestly, I think all these schools should close.

Defenders of schools like these (if they actually exist) could potentially argue that there is nothing wrong with the education these schools provide, and the poor employment stats are a product of the terrible economy. However, the real evidence of the terrible education these schools offer are the bar passage rates. At Whittier, for example, less than half of first time takers of the CA bar exam passed. LESS THAN HALF!!! What are these students learning over there???

At the risk of sounding like a horrible human being, the big problem is not necessarily the education that people receive as much as the quality of students themselves. Let's be honest, even at the most "prestigious" places, tons of students learn on the basis of supplements, supplements that are equally available at the schools with the lowest passage rates. Property is property whether you take it at Harvard or somewhere else, it is not like the Harvard professor will let you know a big secret that students at other schools will not learn.

You're placing blame on lazy students rather than the law schools graduating 2.5 JDs per available job?

If they can't pass the bar they are not even eligible for those jobs. Yes, there is blame to put on the schools for creating too many lawyers, however more blame should be put on why certain schools believe that no matter what score you get on the LSAT, that you should be able to get a legal education somewhere. There are certain people who should not go to law school.

Compared to all of the others, Southwestern actually has a decent amount of alumni doing pretty well in SoCal. One of my parents friends (a very successful litigation lawyer) went there and said he preferred his education there over any he could've gotten. A perk of it, or so I've heard, is that while many better schools teach law theory, Southwestern teaches you how to be a lawyer. Don't know whether that is true or not, just passing on things I've heard.

bgoodrick wrote:Compared to all of the others, Southwestern actually has a decent amount of alumni doing pretty well in SoCal. One of my parents friends (a very successful litigation lawyer) went there and said he preferred his education there over any he could've gotten. A perk of it, or so I've heard, is that while many better schools teach law theory, Southwestern teaches you how to be a lawyer. Don't know whether that is true or not, just passing on things I've heard.

While that could be true- he went to law school in a different time. I've met several SW grads who seemed smart and capable and near the top of their class, and none of them had good legal employment prospects. I would be shocked if any of them ever got full time law jobs.

As bad as Thomas Jefferson is - they have a brand new building which leads me to believe they are continuing to rake in money. Western St. has been around forever, pretty established, and in good times had pretty decent placement in local government. I would guess La Verne and Whittier might fall since they can't seem to stay accreddited.

You would think stand-alone schools like TJ and Southwestern would be the most likely to fall but from what I've seen... they seem to be run more like businesses and will just adjust tuition and enrollment to make a profit each year.

bgoodrick wrote:Compared to all of the others, Southwestern actually has a decent amount of alumni doing pretty well in SoCal. One of my parents friends (a very successful litigation lawyer) went there and said he preferred his education there over any he could've gotten. A perk of it, or so I've heard, is that while many better schools teach law theory, Southwestern teaches you how to be a lawyer. Don't know whether that is true or not, just passing on things I've heard.

TITCR

Nat Sherman wrote:If they can't pass the bar they are not even eligible for those jobs. Yes, there is blame to put on the schools for creating too many lawyers, however more blame should be put on why certain schools believe that no matter what score you get on the LSAT, that you should be able to get a legal education somewhere. There are certain people who should not go to law school.

This is an excellent point. I'm sure that the low bar passage rates are a combination of both a poor education and under qualified students, but like you say, you can't get a job if you don't pass the bar.

If there was a Med School where only 45% of grads could get a medical license (45% is Whittier's bar passage rate, BTW), it would definitely get shut down. I am shocked that people continue to flush their money down the toilet by signing up for schools like these.

BoGuaGua wrote:

bgoodrick wrote:Compared to all of the others, Southwestern actually has a decent amount of alumni doing pretty well in SoCal. One of my parents friends (a very successful litigation lawyer) went there and said he preferred his education there over any he could've gotten. A perk of it, or so I've heard, is that while many better schools teach law theory, Southwestern teaches you how to be a lawyer. Don't know whether that is true or not, just passing on things I've heard.

TITCR

Definitely NOT the credited response. Look at the stats: http://blogs.law.yale.edu/blogs/rareboo ... ion263.jpg

Only 103 out of 298 got full time law jobs. You would have to be BATSHIT CRAZY to got to a school where 2/3 of students don't get law jobs. Nobody cares if you learn legal theory, practical legal skills, or how to wash dishes. None of that matters if you only have a 1/3 chance of getting a job!

For that matter, the fact that only 58% of Southwestern grads pass the bar indicates that the school doesn't do a very good job teaching students what they need to know to get a law job.

TL;DR = Don't say stupid things without looking at stats

California has a shit ton of law schools that aren't even ABA accredited and doing just fine. None of these places will fold.

If anything, the People's College of Law should fold. The Mayor of Los Angeles, Villaraigosa, as well as one of the most idiotic members of the CA legislature, Felipe Fuentes (termed out and vying for, probably successfully, a Los Angeles City Council spot) both went to this non-accredited crap school and failed the bar a combined total of 7 times - still haven't passed. Oy.