. Forum

[20141023]

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[KD35]

That makes no sense...let's say $200/wk (on the low end) extra for another 20 hrs of work a week. Still won't make up for upwards of 70k/yr for some law schools.

[Ti Malice]

What an asshole.

This guy's chief claim to fame appears to be successfully shepherding TTTT shitmills like Charleston and Texas Wesleyan through the ABA accreditation process.

[y2zipper]

Yeah, because a 20K salary is really going to wipe away all the expense and you don't need your summers to get legal experience...

[20141023]

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[ookoshi]

The people who can benefit the most from the repeal of the 20 hour rule are people who can hold jobs that pay significantly better than $10 an hour.

Just because the majority of law students wouldn't benefit from eliminating that rule doesn't mean it's a good rule. If that rule didn't exist, nothing is forcing you to work more than 20 hours a week, or even work at all. If you think that dedicating 100% of your time into maximizing your grades and class rank is the best use of your time, you're still free to spend it that way.

"20k a year won't make a difference" is not an argument that the rule is a good rule.

In addition, every dollar you don't borrow is two that you don't have to pay back. Reducing your debt by 20k a year is nothing to sneeze at.

At the end of the day, half the class is going to be below median at a mid-tier school. Those people would be infinitely better off working off debt as long as they still do well enough to get their JD.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Two separate issues:

1. They should eliminate the rule, because the ABA doesn't have any business telling students how to spend their time when they're at law school.

2. The elimination of this rule will help 0.1% of people and isn't anywhere close to a significant solution to the numerous problems with law school.

[jingosaur]

Two separate issues:

1. They should eliminate the rule, because the ABA doesn't have any business telling students how to spend their time when they're at law school.

2. The elimination of this rule will help 0.1% of people and isn't anywhere close to a significant solution to the numerous problems with law school.

TCR

[20141023]

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[ookoshi]

2. The elimination of this rule will help 0.1% of people and isn't anywhere close to a significant solution to the numerous problems with law school.

I disagree. This is true for T14 schools, and probably T1 schools, but the further you go down the tier, the less your school rank matters and the more your COA matters. Someone going to Cooley, for example, should be attempting to graduate with as little debt as possible, and working a full time job, even for $10/hour, to reduce their debt by $20,000 a year, is a far better use of their time than to use those 40 hours studying to be top of their class at Cooley.

Yes, you can argue no one should be going to Cooley to begin with. I totally agree with that. But, it doesn't change the fact that people DO go, and those are people who benefit from being able to work full time.

In other words, if someone makes the mistake of going to a TTT/TTTT school, they should at least be able to mitigate that mistake by working off debt while they are in school.

[Ti Malice]

The people who can benefit the most from the repeal of the 20 hour rule are people who can hold jobs that pay significantly better than $10 an hour.

Just because the majority of law students wouldn't benefit from eliminating that rule doesn't mean it's a good rule. If that rule didn't exist, nothing is forcing you to work more than 20 hours a week, or even work at all. If you think that dedicating 100% of your time into maximizing your grades and class rank is the best use of your time, you're still free to spend it that way.

"20k a year won't make a difference" is not an argument that the rule is a good rule.

In addition, every dollar you don't borrow is two that you don't have to pay back. Reducing your debt by 20k a year is nothing to sneeze at.

At the end of the day, half the class is going to be below median at a mid-tier school. Those people would be infinitely better off working off debt as long as they still do well enough to get their JD.

I don't think anyone has yet argued that the rule is a good rule.

[20141023]

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[justonemoregame]

Boomers just have to die. It's the answer to so many problems.

[ookoshi]

I don't think anyone has yet argued that the rule is a good rule.

Yeah... what we're laughing at, ookoshi, is the fact that the dean of a law school - someone that you would think would have a clue - is recommending that the ABA eliminate the cap on how many hours students can work in a week as his suggestion of how to fix the current issues. He didn’t mention a single thing about reducing tuition.

From the article quoted by the OP, the other thing he recommended is not having librarians be the judge of library requirements for ABA accreditation. I think his argument that law school expenditures being on the rise in part because of law library requirements for things that few, if any, students use as a way of reducing the overhead costs of running law schools goes towards suggesting that law schools could be cheaper with that being one factor in the equation.

I agree his suggestions do not go very far in addressing the dilemma concerning the law profession. Law school is not only too expensive, but we are minting too many new lawyers every year.

However, I think we are underestimating the impact removing the 20 hour rule has. There are schools so terrible that the expected outcome from someone near the top of their class is not that different than from the bottom of their class, and both are abysmal. Students at those schools would be better minimizing their debt, even if only by $30-40k over 3 years, as much as possible.

[guano]

I don't think anyone has yet argued that the rule is a good rule.

Yeah... what we're laughing at, ookoshi, is the fact that the dean of a law school - someone that you would think would have a clue - is recommending that the ABA eliminate the cap on how many hours students can work in a week as his suggestion of how to fix the current issues. He didn’t mention a single thing about reducing tuition.

From the article quoted by the OP, the other thing he recommended is not having librarians be the judge of library requirements for ABA accreditation. I think his argument that law school expenditures being on the rise in part because of law library requirements for things that few, if any, students use as a way of reducing the overhead costs of running law schools goes towards suggesting that law schools could be cheaper with that being one factor in the equation.

I agree his suggestions do not go very far in addressing the dilemma concerning the law profession. Law school is not only too expensive, but we are minting too many new lawyers every year.

However, I think we are underestimating the impact removing the 20 hour rule has. There are schools so terrible that the expected outcome from someone near the top of their class is not that different than from the bottom of their class, and both are abysmal. Students at those schools would be better minimizing their debt, even if only by $30-40k over 3 years, as much as possible.

students at those schools would be better off not attending

[20141023]

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[ookoshi]

students at those schools would be better off not attending

And like I said, I agree. But given that we can't force those people to not attend, we should encourage them to minimize their mistake by minimizing debt.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be removing accreditation and closing the doors of like 60-80 law schools in this country. I'm down with that. But, short of that, let's do what we can to make those making bad choices less bad.

[20141023]

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[timbs4339]

I worked the 20 hour limit throughout school and would have benefited from being allowed to work more hours. I had no family- I just wanted to work. Even at $12 an hour, at 40 hours a week throughout school that's still a few thousand in foregone debt. Of course it's not going to solve the problem of high cost, but it's a quick and easy change that could be helpful to some students.

And at a top law school, the curve is so easy that you really don't have to be in class very much to get Bs and graduate. I knew several people who violated this rule (probably without knowing it because it wasn't enforced) and worked more than 20 hours at market or near-market paying jobs.

[ookoshi]

But encouraging students to ignore their studies and instead work tons of hours during law school isn't really a "less bad" choice. Even at shitty law schools, top graduates can either transfer out or get "decent" employment (although it might not be biglaw or federal clerkships).

"Top graduates", sure. But after a semester or two, half the class is at or below median, by definition. And again, yes, those people probably shouldn't be attending law school in the first place, but if they are, minimizing debt is definitely the "less bad" choice for those people.

[NYstate]

Surely no one is surprised that a dean of a law school thinks the problem with cost is because the students can't also have outside jobs.

This shitboomer and his greed is the reason law school is so expensive. They want to take students for all they can - even though they can rationalize to themselves that they are doing the right thing.

[BeautifulSW]

If you REALLY want to fix the cost of law school, end eligibility for Student Loans for Law Students. Cold turkey.

[guano]

If you REALLY want to fix the cost of law school, end eligibility for student loans for law students. Cold turkey.

Came here to say this

Or, just limit the amount; 10 years ago, graduate borrowing was Stafford or Private Kiabs only (no grad plus). Tuition was lower

[NoodleyOne]

If you REALLY want to fix the cost of law school, end eligibility for student loans for law students. Cold turkey.

Yeah, there probably won't be any class or racial fallout from that...

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

If you REALLY want to fix the cost of law school, end eligibility for student loans for law students. Cold turkey.

Yeah, there probably won't be any class or racial fallout from that...

Eventually warm, fuzzy politics has to give way to economic reality. We have an Econ 101-level problem in the law school market--we heavily subsidized a good and now produce it in a giant surplus. Schools have no incentive to reduce tuition because taxpayers are eventually footing the bill for people who shouldn't have a legal education (people who can't get into another better than a TTT). Students have much less incentive to be concerned about whether they're making a good investment given IBR/PAYE, which creates a moral hazard problem--private gains for those who succeed and socialized losses.

You can't just make everyone able to afford something via subsidy. Schools can charge basically anything they want because they know the federal government won't turn down anyone for eligibility and will just pick up the tab for those who fail. In an effort to remedy the unequal sharing of virtue, subsidies are fast creating equal sharing of misery.