UC Irvine School of Law's 2nd class statistics is out Forum

[JoyceL1986]

[strike]people say[/strike] Lower ranked grads in so cal say UCI is acting like a douche
you are basically arguing that acting like a douche is necessary for success (as far as law schools go)

Fixed

there is no school ranked lower than UCI

It's sad that UCI just started last year, unranked, and yet it's more respected, projected to be ranked higher, and has a higher caliber students than lets say... UC Hastings?

[NayBoer]

On behalf of economics, I feel the need to point out that this is not a tragedy of the commons. That term is generally used when an unowned (or commonly owned) resource is not regulated in its exploitation, and is needlessly despoiled or exhausted. Like overfishing, overhunting public lands, etc. Too many LS seats isn't a tragedy of the commons, it's just competition.

But there is an argument to be made that there's a LS bubble caused by overfunding from the government (starting schools, but mostly from securing loans) and irrational exuberance on the part of 0Ls.

On behalf of myself since I posted the link, law school jobs are a fixed resource. There are more people coming out of law schools every year than there are jobs already.

UCI is a timber company, not a tree.

By that argument, basically any situation involving possible oversupply is a tragedy of the commons.

Law jobs obviously aren't a fixed resource. A bunch of Vault firms didn't even exist before WWII, and there are way more biglaw jobs today than in the 1970s.

[Fancy Pants]

On behalf of myself since I posted the link, law school jobs are a fixed resource. There are more people coming out of law schools every year than there are jobs already.

UCI is a timber company, not a tree.

So what resource is being depleted, exactly?

[Borhas]

It's sad that UCI just started last year, unranked, and yet it's more respected, projected to be ranked higher, and has a higher caliber students than lets say... UC Hastings?

please refer to my previous posts regarding douchery

[NayBoer]

On behalf of myself since I posted the link, law school jobs are a fixed resource. There are more people coming out of law schools every year than there are jobs already.

UCI is a timber company, not a tree.

So what resource is being depleted, exactly?

Jobs, I think he means.

Pretty sure his point is that, without a central authority to manage the number of seats, too many lawyers will be produced. Which is what Marx called overproduction and for decades was assumed to be the fatal flaw of the free market. Now it's sort of a joke of history.

[tomhobbes]

Anyone have pictures of this paradise?

[Fancy Pants]

On behalf of myself since I posted the link, law school jobs are a fixed resource. There are more people coming out of law schools every year than there are jobs already.

UCI is a timber company, not a tree.

So what resource is being depleted, exactly?

Jobs, I think he means.

Pretty sure his point is that, without a central authority to manage the number of seats, too many lawyers will be produced. Which is what Marx called overproduction and for decades was assumed to be the fatal flaw of the free market. Now it's sort of a joke of history.

If jobs is what he means then that seems kind of silly. Law schools aren't depleting jobs, they're wasting people's time and money. It doesn't matter how many JD's you push out into the world, the jobs that exist are going to still exist. Tragedy of the Commons refers to basically using a resource until it's unusable, as you explained. If you overfish a river, the river could run out of fish. If you put out too many lawyers, it's not going to somehow cause legal jobs to disappear.

[General Tso]

It's sad that UCI just started last year, unranked, and yet it's more respected, projected to be ranked higher, and has a higher caliber students than lets say... UC Hastings?

please refer to my previous posts regarding douchery

Yeah let's see UCI offer no scholarships, take 425 1Ls, and maintain a 163 median LSAT. Then we'll talk.

And "more respected"? Hastings is #31 in Academic reputation and even higher than that in lawyer/judge reputation. You people really need to stop being such USNWR homers.

[270910]

On behalf of myself since I posted the link, law school jobs are a fixed resource. There are more people coming out of law schools every year than there are jobs already.

UCI is a timber company, not a tree.

So what resource is being depleted, exactly?

Jobs, I think he means.

Pretty sure his point is that, without a central authority to manage the number of seats, too many lawyers will be produced. Which is what Marx called overproduction and for decades was assumed to be the fatal flaw of the free market. Now it's sort of a joke of history.

You can call it the tragedy of the commons or not, I couldn't give two shits. But the premise is identical: individual actors making rational decisions (I'm a famous law professor, I bet I can start a law school that will attract students and get decent jobs for some/many/most of them) cause harm to other actors similarly situated. There is incentive for schools to open in the first place and to increase class sizes despite the fact that doing so makes it less likely that any individual law grad will get a (good) job since the supply of law grads already vastly outnumbers the demand for their services.

[270910]

If you overfish a river, the river could run out of fish. If you put out too many lawyers, it's not going to somehow cause legal jobs to disappear.

If you overfish a river, the fishermen starve. If you over saturate the job market, the people you've educated starve. In both cases the individual fisherment/law schools have very different incentives than the group as a whole.

It's an abstraction.

[JoyceL1986]

I love this discussion of depleting natural resources vs jobs. I hope this is a joke.

[Fancy Pants]

If you overfish a river, the river could run out of fish. If you put out too many lawyers, it's not going to somehow cause legal jobs to disappear.

If you overfish a river, the fishermen starve. If you over saturate the job market, the people you've educated starve. In both cases the individual fisherment/law schools have very different incentives than the group as a whole.

It's an abstraction.

If you overfish a river, all the fishermen starve. If you oversaturate the job market, there are still legal jobs that people are getting, and there is a very specific indicator of your chances to getting those legal jobs. You haven't actually affected the resource through oversaturation, which is a pretty significant component of the Tragedy of the Commons.

[270910]

If you overfish a river, the river could run out of fish. If you put out too many lawyers, it's not going to somehow cause legal jobs to disappear.

If you overfish a river, the fishermen starve. If you over saturate the job market, the people you've educated starve. In both cases the individual fisherment/law schools have very different incentives than the group as a whole.

It's an abstraction.

If you overfish a river, all the fishermen starve. If you oversaturate the job market, there are still legal jobs that people are getting, and there is a very specific indicator of your chances to getting those legal jobs. You haven't actually affected the resource through oversaturation, which is a pretty significant component of the Tragedy of the Commons.

...ok?

You don't win 10 points for proving that the analogy I made isn't perfect. It still suited the purposes for which I used (showing that UCI's actions harmed other law schools). This is completely inane, and law school has given me a fairly high tolerance for the inane, so that's saying something.

[rayiner]

There isn't really an oversupply of lawyers. If you look at the statistics, the number of lawyers graduating from American schools barely grew between 1970-2000, and has grown in the past decade but not enough to come close to matching population growth.

The real problem is the skyrocketing tuition and the gap between biglaw and smalllaw salaries. In the mid 1990s, smalllaw paid like $45k and biglaw maybe $80k, and tuition was affordable. Now, smalllaw pays like $55k and biglaw pays $160k, but tuition is barely affordable even on a biglaw salary.

[Fancy Pants]

If you overfish a river, the river could run out of fish. If you put out too many lawyers, it's not going to somehow cause legal jobs to disappear.

If you overfish a river, the fishermen starve. If you over saturate the job market, the people you've educated starve. In both cases the individual fisherment/law schools have very different incentives than the group as a whole.

It's an abstraction.

If you overfish a river, all the fishermen starve. If you oversaturate the job market, there are still legal jobs that people are getting, and there is a very specific indicator of your chances to getting those legal jobs. You haven't actually affected the resource through oversaturation, which is a pretty significant component of the Tragedy of the Commons.

...ok?

You don't win 10 points for proving that the analogy I made isn't perfect. It still suited the purposes for which I used (showing that UCI's actions harmed other law schools). This is completely inane, and law school has given me a fairly high tolerance for the inane, so that's saying something.

Saying something is the Tragedy of the Commons is an analogy?

This is actually a pretty significant point. Tragedy of the Commons is something that hurts everyone involved including the offenders, which is what makes it bad. What you're describing is just competition. If I open a grocery store near other grocery stores and have a lot more money to spend on advertising and offering lower prices, it's going to hurt the grocery stores nearby. That isn't tragedy of the commons, it's just competition.

By talking about Tragedy of the Commons, it appears that you're trying to make a point about UCI opening hurting everyone involved in legal education/the legal market. If that's not the point you were making, then fine, it's just a misunderstanding. But if it is, it seems patently wrong. UCI opening would only appear to hurt schools that are adversely affected by it, which isn't the entire legal market.

[NayBoer]

I think the larger problem here is not that it's too easy to start a law school, but that it's too easy to get a loan. Whereas most loans and investments require analysis of the likelihood of repayment, law school loans are more or less automatic.

It's compounded by the fact that many people value being a lawyer for its own sake, and think that a JD is somehow a valuable and worthy degree. So they'll go in without scrutinizing the chances of financial success.

There's a similar situation in Egypt, where the government gives away free or cheap tuition (forget which) and tons of people have BAs because there's enormous social value placed on college education. Then they graduate and the economy is state-controlled shit with not nearly enough jobs, so they work retail, drive cabs, etc. with their BAs.

[270910]

By talking about Tragedy of the Commons, it appears that you're trying to make a point about UCI opening hurting everyone involved in legal education/the legal market.

That was precisely my intention, and I believe that it is true.

[270910]

I think the larger problem here is not that it's too easy to start a law school, but that it's too easy to get a loan.

Very true. Although trying to restrict access to loans for education would be a (perhaps worse) problem.

[NayBoer]

There isn't really an oversupply of lawyers. If you look at the statistics, the number of lawyers graduating from American schools barely grew between 1970-2000, and has grown in the past decade but not enough to come close to matching population growth.

The real problem is the skyrocketing tuition and the gap between biglaw and smalllaw salaries. In the mid 1990s, smalllaw paid like $45k and biglaw maybe $80k, and tuition was affordable. Now, smalllaw pays like $55k and biglaw pays $160k, but tuition is barely affordable even on a biglaw salary.

Not really knowledgeable enough on the statistics to have an opinion on oversupply, but don't like a fifth or more of JDs fail to ever work as attorneys? Do you figure that's mostly self-selection?

[ruleser]

If you overfish a river, the river could run out of fish. If you put out too many lawyers, it's not going to somehow cause legal jobs to disappear.

If you overfish a river, the fishermen starve. If you over saturate the job market, the people you've educated starve. In both cases the individual fisherment/law schools have very different incentives than the group as a whole.

It's an abstraction.

If you overfish a river, all the fishermen starve. If you oversaturate the job market, there are still legal jobs that people are getting, and there is a very specific indicator of your chances to getting those legal jobs. You haven't actually affected the resource through oversaturation, which is a pretty significant component of the Tragedy of the Commons.

Well, just to get back to UCI, UCI is a unique situation - they actually encountered an underserved market in all this mess. Law school vs. employment is not really a national discussion, it's regional. If someone opened another school in NY, DC, Chicago, even LA, one could make these arguments. But OC has three million people and no T1. This is because OC's growth is a new thing. So Cal is very different than much of the country - LA 40 years ago was maybe half what it is now, and OC was next to nothing. Now there are 3 million OCers and no T1.

So while nationally your discussion may be on target or not, ITT, UCI is arriving to serve a niche that is basically unserved - the OC partners I met said they have the problem of Harvardites, etc, coming for a year or two and leaving. Even UCLAers/USCers are more prone to want to be in LA than OC. OC wants a T1 OC school=a 3 million person market having no local T1 competition.

[270910]

There is no such thing as an under-served legal market. The very concept makes me chuckle, then makes me frown, then makes me curl into a ball and scream desperate tears of agony.

[Blindmelon]

There is no such thing as an under-served legal market. The very concept makes me chuckle, then makes me frown, then makes me curl into a ball and scream desperate tears of agony.

Disagreed - theres no T1 in Maine or RI, therefore we should open up law schools there too. Northern NJ have RU-Newark and Southern Jersey has RU-Camden, but what about Central Jersey? Under served market, lets open a law school.

Anyone interested in starting a law school with me? Stanford Law was started by someone who went to BU Law, so I think this could work. Of course, I'd have to be Dean - Biglaw Partner > 500k, Law school Dean > 500k + better hours. Cha-ching!

[wired]

IIT: Disco uses commonly referenced economics situation to try to bolster argument; people who know what they are talking about point out the obvious problem in argument.

Just about any appeal to economics in terms of serving the legal market is going to result in one of three conclusions:
1) The lawyer labor market is similar to classical competition models and the best thing to do is let lawyers compete on price and then the supply will adjust accordingly (and anyone complaining about low-pay is an idiot - you're offering a service; if someone can offer it for cheaper, suck it up. That's competition.
2) Bar associations need to only admit the highest performing students in order to protect people from low-quality lawyers. You buy into this only if you think people can't reasonably judge what a good lawyer is AND you think that the government (or ABA) ought to step in to help people make decisions for themselves. Either way, it is pretty obvious from UCI's stats that they would produce good quality lawyers and should be in business.
3) You think that law student applicants are uninformed or rationally ignorant and the government (or ABA) needs to protect them from applying to law school by decreasing the number of law schools and effectually cut off the lower end of law schools. You should only buy this if you think that the salary of lawyers should be kept artificially high, probably because you believe #2 roughly. Basically, you think there should be only good lawyers and that people too stupid to realize they won't be good lawyers should be kept out of law school by force instead of by choice.

Anything about the tragedy of the commons or analogizing this to the tragedy of the commons is just off base.

[ruleser]

There is no such thing as an under-served legal market. The very concept makes me chuckle, then makes me frown, then makes me curl into a ball and scream desperate tears of agony.

Disagreed - theres no T1 in Maine or RI, therefore we should open up law schools there too. Northern NJ have RU-Newark and Southern Jersey has RU-Camden, but what about Central Jersey? Under served market, lets open a law school.

Anyone interested in starting a law school with me? Stanford Law was started by someone who went to BU Law, so I think this could work. Of course, I'd have to be Dean - Biglaw Partner > 500k, Law school Dean > 500k + better hours. Cha-ching!

OC=3 million people. Maine and RI combined only have 2 mil people. Chicago only has 2 mil. OC is the 6th most populous county in the country. And I apologize, San Diego doesn't have 1 million people, it has 3 million. So that is 6 million people with no T1 - like the entire state of Mass. not having a single T1.

To give the perspective, this from the US Census Bureau - top US Counties by population:

1 Los Angeles County, CA 9,848,011
2 Cook County, IL 5,287,037
3 Harris County, TX 4,070,989
4 Maricopa County, AZ 4,023,132
5 San Diego County, CA 3,053,793
6 Orange County, CA 3,026,786

I think you can see the unique situation - I was wrong also about LA, the city has 4 mil, the county 9 mil. Anyway, the # 5 and 6 counties in the US have no T1 serviing them, and the #1 county is a short drive away...

Just for a last number- LA/OC/SD=16 million people. That would make just those three counties the fourth largest state, with only Texas, NY, and FL having more people - the whole state of NY only has 19 million people as a comparison. These counties have more people than the whole state of IL, PA, OH - and double what NJ has.

[NayBoer]

Not sure it really matters whether the school is Tier 1 or not. If there's one school in a state, it's probably gold there. And if it's not, then that means some regional school is pumping in grads.

If anywhere needs a school, it's probably Alaska.* It has none and I think settles for some sort of reciprocity with UWash. Not sure there's a big market for its hypothetical grads, though.

*ib palin joke