Top Law Schools

I know there has been a lot of speculation with regard to the quality of UCI's second-year class. Dean Chemerinsky promised a second-year class of at least equal caliber to the inaugural class ("top 20").

The school revealed the numbers just yesterday:

Inaugural class: GPA 3.43-3.76, LSAT 164-168
Second class: GPA 3.38-3.79, LSAT 163-169

Yield= 53% (93/174)

http://www.law.uci.edu/press_releases/05-03-10.html


EDIT: Edited to include yield

Well that's a bit surprising.

This drastic drop in quality is sure to doom UCI. Dean Chemerinsky should just call up the UC Regents and have them shut down the school.

nobody give a rat ass

General Tso wrote:nobody give a rat ass

1) You're wrong, considering how much this question is debated on TLS.

2) Is there any good reason for you to be so rude?

ViP wrote:

General Tso wrote:nobody give a rat ass

1) You're wrong, considering how much this question is debated on TLS.

2) Is there any good reason for you to be so rude?

just trying to reclaim my trademark...I was almost banned for it yet the mods praise Godspeed for the same catchphrase

Well good for them. I was expecting a dip now that people are getting half-rides instead of full scholarships. Next year, however...

The widening gap suggests they may have needed to rely more heavily on splitters this go around

.

Good news to hear. I'm not sure why some people seem to want the school to fail when it has no effect on them (unless they go to Chapman perhaps). Have they given any hints about whether the third class (2014) will all be getting some sort of scholarships? Also will the class size continue to increase at the same rate (to around 120 next year)?

malfurion wrote:Good news to hear. I'm not sure why some people seem to want the school to fail when it has no effect on them. Have they given any hints about whether the third class (2014) will all be getting some sort of scholarships? Also will the class size continue to increase at the same rate (to around 120 next year)?

There is a difference between 'I want UCI to fail' and 'Oh my God, 50,000 students start law school every year for just over 30,000 jobs, won't somebody please think of the CHILDREN?~!'

malfurion wrote:Good news to hear. I'm not sure why some people seem to want the school to fail when it has no effect on them (unless they go to Chapman perhaps). Have they given any hints about whether the third class (2014) will all be getting some sort of scholarships? Also will the class size continue to increase at the same rate (to around 120 next year)?

The goal is to still provide some sort of across-the-board scholarship for next year's class. Probably quarter-tuition? Not really sure.

After that I think it'll be a system pretty much like anywhere else, with the top students getting dump trucks full of money and the ones who get in below the medians getting little to none.

I have it on good authority that UCI will still have a lot of money in the long term for those merit scholarships.

disco_barred wrote: There is a difference between 'I want UCI to fail' and 'Oh my God, 50,000 students start law school every year for just over 30,000 jobs, won't somebody please think of the CHILDREN?~!'

There's a difference between purple and zebras too, and that's about as relevant. Whether 93 students are going to UCI or would've gone to some other law school instead doesn't really have an effect one way or the other on how fucked up the legal employment situation is. The only people that are actively hurt by UCI being a success are students at Chapman and other low-ranked SoCal schools who now have to deal with tougher competition in the area.

Do they have to bring it up to a certain size? It seems like they could absolutely crush it in the rankings if they kept each 1L class to like 100 students.

disco_barred wrote:The widening gap suggests they may have needed to rely more heavily on splitters this go around

Possibly, but I think another explanation is simply the larger size of the class (the 2nd class is 50% larger than the 1st class). Hard to substantiate, but seems plausible. The 60-member inaugural class just seems too small to expect a wide range of numbers.

I'm most impressed by the yield rate, to be honest. I believe Harvard and Yale are the only schools with a yield stronger than 53% (Stanford is 43%, Columbia is 35% according to LSN).

Half-tuition is nice, but this is more than money at play.

malfurion wrote:

disco_barred wrote: There is a difference between 'I want UCI to fail' and 'Oh my God, 50,000 students start law school every year for just over 30,000 jobs, won't somebody please think of the CHILDREN?~!'

There's a difference between purple and zebras too, and that's about as relevant. Whether 93 students are going to UCI or would've gone to some other law school instead doesn't really have an effect one way or the other on how fucked up the legal employment situation is. The only people that are actively hurt by UCI being a success are students at Chapman and other low-ranked SoCal schools.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

a/k/a Thanks, UC Irvine: You're Helping

HTH

A'nold wrote:Do they have to bring it up to a certain size? It seems like they could absolutely crush it in the rankings if they kept each 1L class to like 100 students.

The eventual goal is 200 students per class.

disco_barred wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

a/k/a Thanks, UC Irvine: You're Helping

HTH

Well, yeah, if we were arguing over whether UCI should have opened the law school in the first place, then I could see that. But given that it has opened, I don't see how the caliber of students that attend could have either a positive or negative effect on the overall legal employment problem. The people at UCI would be going to some other roughly equivalent law school if UCI wasn't there. If UCI had shittier students instead, that wouldn't help solve the problem, would it?

malfurion wrote:

disco_barred wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

a/k/a Thanks, UC Irvine: You're Helping

HTH

Well, yeah, if we were arguing over whether UCI should have opened the law school in the first place, then I could see that. But given that it has opened, I don't see how the caliber of students that attend could have either a positive or negative effect on the overall legal employment problem. The people at UCI would be going to some other roughly equivalent law school if UCI wasn't there. If UCI had shittier students instead, that wouldn't help solve the problem, would it?

X = # of seats at law schools

Y = # of jobs available to graduates

Y is dropping like a rock. Several schools on their own are increasing X. UCI is making it harder for you, me, and everyone else to get a legal job. It's a horrible death spiral, and you can't just write it off as "LOOOL ONE SCHOOL NO BIG DEAL." For the majority of law school graduates, the experience was already basically a horrible pyramid scam.

The flip side of the coin is that they're blooming into the shit storm, and firms might favor their connections. I have no doubt UCI will network many people into sweet gigs, especially in the first class(es), but my objective assessment is that when legal employers are cutting back they will be reluctant to go to the new guy.

malfurion wrote:

disco_barred wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

a/k/a Thanks, UC Irvine: You're Helping

HTH

Well, yeah, if we were arguing over whether UCI should have opened the law school in the first place, then I could see that. But given that it has opened, I don't see how the caliber of students that attend could have either a positive or negative effect on the overall legal employment problem. The people at UCI would be going to some other roughly equivalent law school if UCI wasn't there. If UCI had shittier students instead, that wouldn't help solve the problem, would it?

Pretty much. UCI + the new UMass Law + others sure to come = less jobs to go around and more needless competition. The ABA needs to crack down on this - the legal job market is in tatters yet schools continue to open promising great jobs. 1 job going to a new school means 1 less to an established school.

Interesting. Those numbers are much worse than I would have thought...especially the low end LSAT numbers.

Blindmelon wrote:

malfurion wrote:

disco_barred wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

a/k/a Thanks, UC Irvine: You're Helping

HTH

Well, yeah, if we were arguing over whether UCI should have opened the law school in the first place, then I could see that. But given that it has opened, I don't see how the caliber of students that attend could have either a positive or negative effect on the overall legal employment problem. The people at UCI would be going to some other roughly equivalent law school if UCI wasn't there. If UCI had shittier students instead, that wouldn't help solve the problem, would it?

Pretty much. UCI + the new UMass Law + others sure to come = less jobs to go around and more needless competition. The ABA needs to crack down on this - the legal job market is in tatters yet schools continue to open promising great jobs. 1 job going to a new school means 1 less to an established school.

Not necessarily (at least in terms of UCI).

As I recently explained in another thread, the general argument against new schools is that they're of garbage quality and they virtually allow any "aspiring lawyer" to enter their doors and submissively write a fat check that all but guarantees a future of fat debt. The point is to disallow the ABA and law schools from immorally baiting weak applicants with the false hope that they will become great lawyers and make tons of money (which also leads to a flood of new lawyers in the market).

UCI is not your typical "new school." As a new school, it's of unprecedented quality. Unlike new schools that are truly crap, UCI attracts students that would otherwise attend other top schools. They're not contributing to the flood of lawyers that critics reference when attacking new schools. The aspiring lawyers that attend UCI Law would've been aspiring lawyers at other T20 schools if they declined UCI's offer.

There are surely some arguments to be made against the creation of UCI law, but the "flooding the market" case doesn't ring true.

ViP wrote:

Blindmelon wrote:

malfurion wrote:

disco_barred wrote: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

a/k/a Thanks, UC Irvine: You're Helping

HTH

Well, yeah, if we were arguing over whether UCI should have opened the law school in the first place, then I could see that. But given that it has opened, I don't see how the caliber of students that attend could have either a positive or negative effect on the overall legal employment problem. The people at UCI would be going to some other roughly equivalent law school if UCI wasn't there. If UCI had shittier students instead, that wouldn't help solve the problem, would it?

Pretty much. UCI + the new UMass Law + others sure to come = less jobs to go around and more needless competition. The ABA needs to crack down on this - the legal job market is in tatters yet schools continue to open promising great jobs. 1 job going to a new school means 1 less to an established school.

Not necessarily (at least in terms of UCI).

As I recently explained in another thread, the general argument against new schools is that they're of garbage quality and they virtually allow any "aspiring lawyer" to enter their doors and submissively write a fat check that all but guarantees a future of fat debt. The point is to disallow the ABA and law schools from immorally baiting weak applicants with the false hope that they will become great lawyers and make tons of money (which also leads to a flood of new lawyers in the market).

UCI is not your typical "new school." As a new school, it's of unprecedented quality. Unlike new schools that are truly crap, UCI attracts students that would otherwise attend other top schools. They're not contributing to the flood of lawyers that critics reference when attacking new schools. The aspiring lawyers that attend UCI Law would've been aspiring lawyers at other T20 schools if they declined UCI's offer.

There are surely some arguments to be made against the creation of UCI law, but the "flooding the market" case doesn't ring true.

This is so simple it hurts to explain it.

Back in the day, there were 25* schools in the top 25. Not all of the students could get jobs.

Now there are 26** schools in the top 25. THERE ARE NO MORE JOBS FOR THEM. There may even be fewer. Everyone loses.

Our argument isn't that UCI was going to send its grads straight to debtor's prison. Our argument is that there are now more students competing for a limited and diminishing resource.

Every year, you see ~100K LSAT tests, ~50K law students, and ~45K law graduates. Shifting the number of students up is brutal wherever it happens on the spectrum, since a good year will see ~5K 6 figure paying jobs and <<<<< 45K legal sector jobs.

*Picked a random number. Substitute '25' for 'good' if you'd like.

**See above

2013 cycle hasn't even finished yet?

I think the reason some people want to see UCI fail is simple.
















Hubris