Top Law Schools

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 11:19 am**

I was looking at a thread for people applying to an extremely expensive (COA $70K) low-ranked school with horrendous employment outcomes (less than 40% of the 2011 class purportedly got legal jobs of any sort, and nearly half of those were either with very small firms of ten lawyers or less or solos), located in a city with several much higher-ranked schools whose graduates are also struggling badly.

People were talking excitedly about how they were getting five-figure annual "scholarships" (with stips, that even if they keep them will leave them with $180K loan balances at graduation), while others expressed how nervous they were about hearing back from an admissions committee that may grant them the privilege of incurring huge debts they'll never pay back. Anyway there were lots of posts in the thread, and of course there are similar threads for many of the dozens of other schools that strongly resemble this school in the most important respects.

It all drove home to me that, while progress is definitely being made, it's just incredibly bad public policy that we allow people to take on six figures of unsecured debt to get degrees that have about a 90% chance of being worse than worthless.

I guess I'll mention that I'm going to be on Huffington Post live today at 1 PM eastern to discuss the higher ed crisis in general and the law school mess in particular.

Vent mode off.

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 12:09 pm**

Tons of people here rally against American University, some people just don't want to listen to reason.

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 12:18 pm**

Paul Campos wrote:I was looking at a thread for people applying to an extremely expensive (COA $70K) low-ranked school with horrendous employment outcomes (less than 40% of the 2011 class purportedly got legal jobs of any sort, and nearly half of those were either with very small firms of ten lawyers or less or solos), located in a city with several much higher-ranked schools whose graduates are also struggling badly.

People were talking excitedly about how they were getting five-figure annual "scholarships" (with stips, that even if they keep them will leave them with $180K loan balances at graduation), while others expressed how nervous they were about hearing back from an admissions committee that may grant them the privilege of incurring huge debts they'll never pay back. Anyway there were lots of posts in the thread, and of course there are similar threads for many of the dozens of other schools that strongly resemble this school in the most important respects.

It all drove home to me that, while progress is definitely being made, it's just incredibly bad public policy that we allow people to take on six figures of unsecured debt to get degrees that have about a 90% chance of being worse than worthless.

I guess I'll mention that I'm going to be on Huffington Post live today at 1 PM eastern to discuss the higher ed crisis in general and the law school mess in particular.

Vent mode off.

I too am frustrated at how many people are eager to pay so much to attend such horrible institutions. Good luck on Huff Post, the work you are doing is very important: people's futures are being saved.

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 12:22 pm**

BigZuck wrote:Tons of people here rally against American University, some people just don't want to listen to reason.

It might be worse than American....

http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewt ... 6&start=25

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 12:24 pm**

Paul Campos wrote:I was looking at a thread for people applying to an extremely expensive (COA $70K) low-ranked school with horrendous employment outcomes (less than 40% of the 2011 class purportedly got legal jobs of any sort, and nearly half of those were either with very small firms of ten lawyers or less or solos), located in a city with several much higher-ranked schools whose graduates are also struggling badly.

People were talking excitedly about how they were getting five-figure annual "scholarships" (with stips, that even if they keep them will leave them with $180K loan balances at graduation), while others expressed how nervous they were about hearing back from an admissions committee that may grant them the privilege of incurring huge debts they'll never pay back. Anyway there were lots of posts in the thread, and of course there are similar threads for many of the dozens of other schools that strongly resemble this school in the most important respects.

It all drove home to me that, while progress is definitely being made, it's just incredibly bad public policy that we allow people to take on six figures of unsecured debt to get degrees that have about a 90% chance of being worse than worthless.

I guess I'll mention that I'm going to be on Huffington Post live today at 1 PM eastern to discuss the higher ed crisis in general and the law school mess in particular.

Vent mode off.

You should pull a Bork and resign your shitty job in protest.

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 1:31 pm**

BTW Brian Tamanaha and Elie Mystal are also participating.

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 1:37 pm**

Will def be looking that up after my last exam/flying to my parents.
You and Elie are both really cool

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 1:40 pm**

JamMasterJ wrote:Will def be looking that up after my last exam/flying to my parents.
You and Elie are both really cool

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 1:54 pm**

Paul Campos wrote:BTW Brian Tamanaha and Elie Mystal are also participating.

Oh cool, I'll watch to see if Elie will call either of you out on your hypocrisy.

I do have to ask why didn't you just name this thread bullshit and self-promotion?

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:03 pm**

dextermorgan wrote:
Paul Campos wrote:BTW Brian Tamanaha and Elie Mystal are also participating.
Oh cool, I'll watch to see if Elie will call either of you out on your hypocrisy.

I do have to ask why didn't you just name this thread bullshit and self-promotion?

Then he wouldn't have given you such a great opportunity to vent.

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:22 pm**

dextermorgan wrote:
Paul Campos wrote:BTW Brian Tamanaha and Elie Mystal are also participating.
Oh cool, I'll watch to see if Elie will call either of you out on your hypocrisy.

I do have to ask why didn't you just name this thread bullshit and self-promotion?

Yeah Campos is making a killing off that blog, bro - and did you see the price of that e-book on Amazon!!!

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:28 pm**

I bought the book for $5 and found it to be worth perhaps $20.

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:28 pm**

Paul Campos wrote:BTW Brian Tamanaha and Elie Mystal are also participating.

This sounds cool. I wish I had time to watch.

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:33 pm**

Paul Campos wrote:BTW Brian Tamanaha and Elie Mystal are also participating.

Well if Elie Mystal will be involved you know the whole affair will be marked by intelligence and relevance.

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:33 pm**

Bildungsroman wrote:
Paul Campos wrote:BTW Brian Tamanaha and Elie Mystal are also participating.
Well if Elie Mystal will be involved you know the whole affair will be marked by intelligence and relevance.

Just said DROVES lol

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:37 pm**

Thanks for keeping up the good work Professor Campos!

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:37 pm**

Paul Campos wrote:I was looking at a thread for people applying to an extremely expensive (COA $70K) low-ranked school with horrendous employment outcomes (less than 40% of the 2011 class purportedly got legal jobs of any sort, and nearly half of those were either with very small firms of ten lawyers or less or solos), located in a city with several much higher-ranked schools whose graduates are also struggling badly.

People were talking excitedly about how they were getting five-figure annual "scholarships" (with stips, that even if they keep them will leave them with $180K loan balances at graduation), while others expressed how nervous they were about hearing back from an admissions committee that may grant them the privilege of incurring huge debts they'll never pay back. Anyway there were lots of posts in the thread, and of course there are similar threads for many of the dozens of other schools that strongly resemble this school in the most important respects.

It all drove home to me that, while progress is definitely being made, it's just incredibly bad public policy that we allow people to take on six figures of unsecured debt to get degrees that have about a 90% chance of being worse than worthless.

I guess I'll mention that I'm going to be on Huffington Post live today at 1 PM eastern to discuss the higher ed crisis in general and the law school mess in particular.

Vent mode off.

In what capacity is the gvmt morally obligated to correct the "market-failure" (mixed-market failure?) of the law school industry? I wanted to ask on this huff po thing but I have to create another username

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:38 pm**

dextermorgan wrote:
Paul Campos wrote:BTW Brian Tamanaha and Elie Mystal are also participating.
Oh cool, I'll watch to see if Elie will call either of you out on your hypocrisy.

I do have to ask why didn't you just name this thread bullshit and self-promotion?

LOL. Are you are Cooley shill or something? I can't think of any other reason for you to respond in this manner.

Also, I don't see any replies from you on the thread that the dean of the University of Illinois College of Law started similarly stating that the thread should be titled bullshit and self-promotion. So does that make you a hypocrite?

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:45 pm**

I just don't get how that guy from Northeastern can sit there when their employment score is 48% and the cost is 42k a year for tuition alone.

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:46 pm**

Ruxin1 wrote:I just don't get how that guy from Northeastern can sit there when their employment score is 48% and the cost is 42k a year for tuition alone.

Because this is how he legally makes thousands of dollars. He doesn't care if his school ruins peoples' lives, as long as he can get his (legally).

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 2:53 pm**

ajax wrote:
Ruxin1 wrote:I just don't get how that guy from Northeastern can sit there when their employment score is 48% and the cost is 42k a year for tuition alone.
Because this is how he legally makes thousands of dollars. He doesn't care if his school ruins peoples' lives, as long as he can get his (legally).

Law school is a risk. Any venture which takes time and money is a risk. What do you want changed?

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 3:00 pm**

oshberg28 wrote:
ajax wrote:
Ruxin1 wrote:I just don't get how that guy from Northeastern can sit there when their employment score is 48% and the cost is 42k a year for tuition alone.
Because this is how he legally makes thousands of dollars. He doesn't care if his school ruins peoples' lives, as long as he can get his (legally).
Law school is a risk. Any venture which takes time and money is a risk. What do you want changed?

LOL!

Oh, I don't know, schools to be honest about their employment stats and total cost of attendance?

This is starting to change. Surprise, surprise that applications are falling off a cliff the past few years when schools can no longer commit fraud.

Posted: **Thu Dec 20, 2012 3:05 pm**

ajax wrote:
oshberg28 wrote:
ajax wrote:
Ruxin1 wrote:I just don't get how that guy from Northeastern can sit there when their employment score is 48% and the cost is 42k a year for tuition alone.
Because this is how he legally makes thousands of dollars. He doesn't care if his school ruins peoples' lives, as long as he can get his (legally).
Law school is a risk. Any venture which takes time and money is a risk. What do you want changed?

LOL!

Oh, I don't know, schools to be honest about their employment stats and total cost of attendance?

This is starting to change. Surprise, surprise that applications are falling off a cliff the past few years when schools can no longer commit fraud.

I agree with your suggestion. I was actually just asking a serious question.

Posted: **Sat Dec 22, 2012 3:14 am**

Posted: **Sat Dec 22, 2012 11:42 am**

Paul Campos wrote:BTW Brian Tamanaha and Elie Mystal are also participating.

Is there anywhere I can watch an archived video of this? I looked yesterday and couldn't find it, but perhaps it just wasn't online yet.
edit: http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/segmen ... 6deb00046f

Also, Merry Christmas!

Post linked to/from above
=======
I realize this is slightly off topic, but have any of you seen this thread in the 'Choosing a Law School' subforum? And have any of you seen this website? Or this one?

I'm sure you've all seen this one by now though.
This pdf from the school's website boasts a 91% employment rate for its 2010 graduates 9 months out of graduation. But it's 2012, and that means that the data for c/0 2011 is and has been available for months. So why haven't they updated their pdf?

If you go to this website for ABA employment data, you can select Catholic University and 2010 to generate a report. Go ahead and do it. (Here's an image link of the report if you are having trouble.)

That data doesn't look too bad, right? If you had a calculator nearby or decided to do the math yourself, you'll notice that 244 "Employed" divided by 286 total graduates comes out to 85.3%, not 91% as is touted on the school's website. They actually don't count graduates pursuing graduate degrees full-time, graduates who neglected to offer any information about their employment, and graduates who responded as unemployed, but "not seeking". That doesn't seem too unreasonable though, right?

But have a closer look at that data. 53 graduates are in business & industry. What does that mean? Are they general counsel of a business, or are they customer service employees at a call center? These are very different job outcomes, but are reported in the same category.

And how about government jobs? Do they work for the CIA or the post office? What about academia? Does this mean that 8 graduates went on to be law professors or work as law school admissions officers or work as secretaries in a university administrative office? These are a lot of questions and the data doesn't help very much. Maybe if we look at the newest data, we can see a clearer picture.

Now, take a look at the data from 2011, which Catholic neglected to post on its website (go here, select Catholic University and 2011 then click 'generate report'--again, here's an image link just in case). Probably just an oversight, right? It's tough to go through admissions applications and determine tuition increases and something as minor as updated employment information for the previous year's graduates isn't the highest priority in the world. After all, you guys can look this up yourself!

But the 2011 ABA data paints a much different picture. Instead of lumping all jobs into a category labeled as "employed," the 2011 report does a better job of showing how many graduates got jobs as lawyers--you know, presumably the reason all of you want to go to law school and all of them went to law school to become.

In fact, just 114 out of 261 graduates found full-time, long-term work requiring bar passage--that means just 43% of law school graduates in 2011 actually went on to presumably become lawyers. Now, compare that to what's on the school's website--91% employment. While that 91% employment is technically true, depending how you crop the data, it does nothing to dissociate those employed from those employed as lawyers. (The presumably is because 44 of those 114 jobs were in private practices consisting of 10 or fewer attorneys, including 7 who identified as "solo practitioners.")

Now, here's a hypothetical question for you, and stay with me--what if I told you that you could spend just three years of your life and $260,000 (LinkRemoved) of your future earnings(well, possible future earnings) for a 43% chance at getting any job at all in the profession you are investing your time and (hopefully) future money to get, would you do it?

I guess that doesn't sound like a great deal, does it? But wait, there's more!

I'll give you $12,250 per year if you maintain good academic standing. That brings the cost of attendance down to just around $223,000! And remember, that's not even real money, yet. It's coming out of your future earnings! You don't have to pay a dime until six months after you graduate!

Still not good enough? How about $13,000 per year? (COA ~$221,000)

Still no? You drive a hard bargain! I'll up it to the best scholarship I can.

What do you say? How about $18,500 per year? That's $55,000!

That's just $204,000 of your possible future earnings (and three years of your life) and then you, too, can have a 43% chance of presumably becoming a lawyer. 43% is better than 0%!

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