Birmingham School of Law Forum

A forum for applicants and admitted students to ask law students and graduates about law school and the practice of law.
Pinktort

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Birmingham School of Law

Post by Pinktort » Thu Aug 14, 2014 3:47 pm

I recently graduated from Law School and I must say that I am so relieved to know that I have the following:

1.) No debt from Loans ( No Sallie Mae calling me after 6-9 months)

2.) I have the ability to practice in 28 out of the 50 states ( reciprocity)

3.) I obtained 4 years of legal- work experience ( fresh outta law school, sorry ABAs... Experience in these economic times means a lot to employers)

4.) I have connections that I promise you, I would not have obtained had I gone to an ABA accredited law school.


Don't allow small minded people to limit your knowledge. Great Lawyers know the exceptions. Think smarter, and not harder.
Last edited by Pinktort on Thu Aug 14, 2014 3:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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McAvoy

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by McAvoy » Thu Aug 14, 2014 3:51 pm

TFT.

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sublime

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by sublime » Thu Aug 14, 2014 3:55 pm

..

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ronanOgara

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by ronanOgara » Thu Aug 14, 2014 3:58 pm

Pinktort wrote:I recently graduated from Law School and I must say that I am so relieved to know that I have the following:

1.) No debt from Loans ( No Sallie Mae calling me after 6-9 months)

2.) I have the ability to practice in 28 out of the 50 states ( reciprocity)

3.) I obtained 4 years of legal- work experience ( fresh outta law school, sorry ABAs... Experience in these economic times means a lot to employers)

4.) I have connections that I promise you, I would not have obtained had I gone to an ABA accredited law school.


Don't allow small minded people to limit your knowledge. Great Lawyers know the exceptions. Think smarter, and not smarter.
I'm a fan of Birmingham Law...but what point are you trying to prove here?

1.) I'm attending an ABA school and I won't have any debt from loans either...I got a full ride.
2.) Sure, you can legally practice in 28 states...but why would you go to Birmingham Law if you wanted to practice in any state not called Alabama? Chances are you'll never get the ability to practice in those 27 other states.
3.) legal-work experience?...yeah ABA schools have that as well.
4.) Yes, if your connections are with other students who attended a non-ABA accredited law school, you then most certainly have connections that you would not have obtained had you been able to attend an ABA accredited law school.

Birmingham Law is great for the purpose it serves. Don't confuse its purpose.

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Mack.Hambleton

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by Mack.Hambleton » Sat Aug 16, 2014 8:47 pm

BSOL shill pls go

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VVSLaw

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by VVSLaw » Tue Apr 24, 2018 6:58 pm

It’s nice to get a full ride to Law school, but not everyone applying to Law school is lucky to get a full ride. I think the point of the original post was to show that BSL is an alternative to the traditional Law school education, and considering that since 2014, Bar exam scores have gone done drastically amongst ABA and Non-ABA... I would put my money on going to the nonABA. At least I wouldnt’ be Suing my Law school cause i’m Underemployed or can’t get a job. Just a thought. :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

BSOLJD

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by BSOLJD » Wed Aug 24, 2022 6:17 pm

The beauty is that everyone has options to choose the school that's right for them. I'm excited to be finished with law school. I'm a recent BSOL graduate and extremely grateful for the opportunity to reach for a long-held dream of going to law school. I could not have otherwise done it without the flexible options provided by BSOL. I did have to drive 4 hours a day round trip twice a week to attend school, but it was worth it! I'm going out on a limb here, but I hope to be able to post back in about a month with my bar exam passage announcement. Wish my dad was alive to see this!

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VirginiaFan

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by VirginiaFan » Thu Aug 25, 2022 6:06 pm

Pinktort wrote:
Thu Aug 14, 2014 3:47 pm
I recently graduated from Law School and I must say that I am so relieved to know that I have the following:

1.) No debt from Loans ( No Sallie Mae calling me after 6-9 months)

2.) I have the ability to practice in 28 out of the 50 states ( reciprocity)

3.) I obtained 4 years of legal- work experience ( fresh outta law school, sorry ABAs... Experience in these economic times means a lot to employers)

4.) I have connections that I promise you, I would not have obtained had I gone to an ABA accredited law school.


Don't allow small minded people to limit your knowledge. Great Lawyers know the exceptions. Think smarter, and not harder.
I assume this is a troll, but I'm going to respond for posterity's sake. Someone, somewhere, is going to google "Is Birmingham School of Law good?" and come across this thread. And when they do, they should know-- going to Birmingham School of Law is one of the quickest ways to ruin your life. Sure, there are quicker ways--taking out a loan to play roulette, streaking across a field during the Superbowl--but at least those are fun.

So, let's take OP at face value. They have an AMAZING job, made great connections in law school, and overall got a great return on investment from Birmingham Law. The next question you should ask is--"well, how are their classmates doing?"

The answer? Really, really poorly. I wish I could tell you exactly HOW poorly, but being an unaccredited shithole, BSOL doesn't publish those numbers. From their Wikipedia, we know that BSOL grads have a first time pass rate of 70%, which is significantly lower than the Alabama average of 87.7%. So, right off the bat you have about a 1/3 chance of NOT BEING A LAWYER, much less getting a good job.

It's certainly possible to become a successful lawyer out of Birmingham Law, much as it's possible to become NFL MVP as the 199th pick of the draft, or becoming a billionaire after dropping out of high school. But do you really want to bet your entire life on being such an extreme outlier?

TL;DR-- if you're considering going to BSOL, retake the LSAT. Even if it takes a year or two to raise your score, the investment will pay for itself ten times over. Then, if you want to work in Alabama, go to the University of Alabama.

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Pneumonia

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by Pneumonia » Thu Aug 25, 2022 8:29 pm

VirginiaFan wrote:
Thu Aug 25, 2022 6:06 pm

It's certainly possible to become a successful lawyer out of Birmingham Law, much as it's possible to become NFL MVP as the 199th pick of the draft, or becoming a billionaire after dropping out of high school. But do you really want to bet your entire life on being such an extreme outlier?
These analogies are apt but incomplete. The last pick in the draft worked very hard to get there. People taking risks on unaccredited law schools almost always envision themselves working very hard for *three years* to be top of they class, but they refuse to work hard for *three months* to get a better LSAT score, and they typically do not see the obvious dissonance between those two positions.

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VirginiaFan

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by VirginiaFan » Fri Aug 26, 2022 12:30 pm

Pneumonia wrote:
Thu Aug 25, 2022 8:29 pm
VirginiaFan wrote:
Thu Aug 25, 2022 6:06 pm

It's certainly possible to become a successful lawyer out of Birmingham Law, much as it's possible to become NFL MVP as the 199th pick of the draft, or becoming a billionaire after dropping out of high school. But do you really want to bet your entire life on being such an extreme outlier?
These analogies are apt but incomplete. The last pick in the draft worked very hard to get there. People taking risks on unaccredited law schools almost always envision themselves working very hard for *three years* to be top of they class, but they refuse to work hard for *three months* to get a better LSAT score, and they typically do not see the obvious dissonance between those two positions.
Very fair point.

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nealric

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by nealric » Wed Aug 31, 2022 1:15 pm

Pneumonia wrote:
Thu Aug 25, 2022 8:29 pm
VirginiaFan wrote:
Thu Aug 25, 2022 6:06 pm

It's certainly possible to become a successful lawyer out of Birmingham Law, much as it's possible to become NFL MVP as the 199th pick of the draft, or becoming a billionaire after dropping out of high school. But do you really want to bet your entire life on being such an extreme outlier?
These analogies are apt but incomplete. The last pick in the draft worked very hard to get there. People taking risks on unaccredited law schools almost always envision themselves working very hard for *three years* to be top of they class, but they refuse to work hard for *three months* to get a better LSAT score, and they typically do not see the obvious dissonance between those two positions.
There are people who worked very hard on the LSAT and, for whatever reason, still can't get a great score. But I agree that there are a lot of people who seem to refuse to do the work on the front end, instead relying on magical thinking to assume that much harder work on the back end will make up for it. Or, they tell themselves that your LSAT score is this immutable thing that can't be improved.

I'm sure there are people out there for whom regionally accredited schools are a reasonably good option, but that takes a very specific set of circumstances.

aspiring0L

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by aspiring0L » Tue Sep 06, 2022 12:58 pm

VirginiaFan wrote:
Thu Aug 25, 2022 6:06 pm
Pinktort wrote:
Thu Aug 14, 2014 3:47 pm
I recently graduated from Law School and I must say that I am so relieved to know that I have the following:

1.) No debt from Loans ( No Sallie Mae calling me after 6-9 months)

2.) I have the ability to practice in 28 out of the 50 states ( reciprocity)

3.) I obtained 4 years of legal- work experience ( fresh outta law school, sorry ABAs... Experience in these economic times means a lot to employers)

4.) I have connections that I promise you, I would not have obtained had I gone to an ABA accredited law school.


Don't allow small minded people to limit your knowledge. Great Lawyers know the exceptions. Think smarter, and not harder.
I assume this is a troll, but I'm going to respond for posterity's sake. Someone, somewhere, is going to google "Is Birmingham School of Law good?" and come across this thread. And when they do, they should know-- going to Birmingham School of Law is one of the quickest ways to ruin your life. Sure, there are quicker ways--taking out a loan to play roulette, streaking across a field during the Superbowl--but at least those are fun.

So, let's take OP at face value. They have an AMAZING job, made great connections in law school, and overall got a great return on investment from Birmingham Law. The next question you should ask is--"well, how are their classmates doing?"

The answer? Really, really poorly. I wish I could tell you exactly HOW poorly, but being an unaccredited shithole, BSOL doesn't publish those numbers. From their Wikipedia, we know that BSOL grads have a first time pass rate of 70%, which is significantly lower than the Alabama average of 87.7%. So, right off the bat you have about a 1/3 chance of NOT BEING A LAWYER, much less getting a good job.

It's certainly possible to become a successful lawyer out of Birmingham Law, much as it's possible to become NFL MVP as the 199th pick of the draft, or becoming a billionaire after dropping out of high school. But do you really want to bet your entire life on being such an extreme outlier?

TL;DR-- if you're considering going to BSOL, retake the LSAT. Even if it takes a year or two to raise your score, the investment will pay for itself ten times over. Then, if you want to work in Alabama, go to the University of Alabama.
Roulette on credit is a quicker way to potentially ruin your life, but it is way less risky than this school. Roulette will not take away three years of your life and, so long as you are only playing one game, you have close to a 50% chance of winning if you choose red or black. Birmingham, on the other hand, is almost certainly guaranteed failure as far as career outcomes go.

BSOLJD

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by BSOLJD » Thu Sep 29, 2022 2:19 pm

I wondered if I had made a mistake going to Birmingham School of Law. But, I'll tell you today I have absolutely no regrets. It's so easy for one to discard things we don't understand. I admit that the school doesn't adequately explain that LAW SCHOOL isn't for everyone, but misunderstanding the school's purpose is not a valid reason to attack the school. The business model seems to accept almost everyone who has money to pay and meet minimal criteria. Contrast that against schools that hand pick their students based on who's highly likely to pass the bar and the end result is that a higher percentage of the hand-picked selection will pass by design every time-- it is simple math of probabilities. The actual truth from my own experience is that Birmingham School of Law provides a non-traditional format for competent students who otherwise would never have an opportunity to become attorneys. I dreamed about it as a little girl and thought I'd lost the opportunity since I made other career choices and decided to have a family. Boy was I ever wrong, and I thank God every day for finding this school after I retired. Each person has to decide their own path in life, but I studied hard, graduated early, and passed the July 2022 bar on my first testing, and I'm proud to say that Birmingham School of Law prepared me well without loading me up with student loan debt. Not everyone is cut out for law school, and not every law school is right for everyone. But, this school was worth the 400-mile drive back and forth weekend after weekend FOR ME. I'm not a genius by any means, so I believe any intelligent person who actually has the time required to put in real work can also be successful at Birmingham School of Law. I believe part of the problem with the low passage rate is that people fool themselves thinking that they can be a student, parent, employee, employer, caretaker of elderly parents, and everything else all at the same time. These non-traditional students are then heartbroken when they don't succeed at the impossible. I hope sharing my honest experience will help someone else make a well-informed decision about whether #Birminghamschooloflaw is the best strategy to help them meet their future career goals. After all, that's really what it is all about-- what one plans to do after passing the bar and whether your degree will take you there!

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paperchaser

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by paperchaser » Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:54 pm

BSOLJD wrote:
Thu Sep 29, 2022 2:19 pm
I wondered if I had made a mistake going to Birmingham School of Law. But, I'll tell you today I have absolutely no regrets. It's so easy for one to discard things we don't understand. I admit that the school doesn't adequately explain that LAW SCHOOL isn't for everyone, but misunderstanding the school's purpose is not a valid reason to attack the school. The business model seems to accept almost everyone who has money to pay and meet minimal criteria. Contrast that against schools that hand pick their students based on who's highly likely to pass the bar and the end result is that a higher percentage of the hand-picked selection will pass by design every time-- it is simple math of probabilities. The actual truth from my own experience is that Birmingham School of Law provides a non-traditional format for competent students who otherwise would never have an opportunity to become attorneys. I dreamed about it as a little girl and thought I'd lost the opportunity since I made other career choices and decided to have a family. Boy was I ever wrong, and I thank God every day for finding this school after I retired. Each person has to decide their own path in life, but I studied hard, graduated early, and passed the July 2022 bar on my first testing, and I'm proud to say that Birmingham School of Law prepared me well without loading me up with student loan debt. Not everyone is cut out for law school, and not every law school is right for everyone. But, this school was worth the 400-mile drive back and forth weekend after weekend FOR ME. I'm not a genius by any means, so I believe any intelligent person who actually has the time required to put in real work can also be successful at Birmingham School of Law. I believe part of the problem with the low passage rate is that people fool themselves thinking that they can be a student, parent, employee, employer, caretaker of elderly parents, and everything else all at the same time. These non-traditional students are then heartbroken when they don't succeed at the impossible. I hope sharing my honest experience will help someone else make a well-informed decision about whether #Birminghamschooloflaw is the best strategy to help them meet their future career goals. After all, that's really what it is all about-- what one plans to do after passing the bar and whether your degree will take you there!
Made an account because I went here and transferred:

1. You made a mistake
2. You will regret it eventually
3. We understand, because I attended and almost everyone here went or will go to real law schools
4. There is no minimal criteria. You can be a felon without a BA and attend
5. Note you said "business model", Yale and UVA do not have business models.
6. Your (our?) school is not desirable, so they cannot hand-pick anything
7. "simple math of probabilities" suggest that diction is not so simple to you
8. We know you are not a genius, you attended Birmingham and stayed
9. The issue with non-traditional students is generally not outside commitments. It is that they are not cutout for school. Your classmates will, as a rule, fail at legal practice and regret the time and energy they applied at Birmingham.

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VirginiaFan

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by VirginiaFan » Sat Oct 01, 2022 9:21 am

paperchaser wrote:
Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:54 pm
BSOLJD wrote:
Thu Sep 29, 2022 2:19 pm
I wondered if I had made a mistake going to Birmingham School of Law. But, I'll tell you today I have absolutely no regrets. It's so easy for one to discard things we don't understand. I admit that the school doesn't adequately explain that LAW SCHOOL isn't for everyone, but misunderstanding the school's purpose is not a valid reason to attack the school. The business model seems to accept almost everyone who has money to pay and meet minimal criteria. Contrast that against schools that hand pick their students based on who's highly likely to pass the bar and the end result is that a higher percentage of the hand-picked selection will pass by design every time-- it is simple math of probabilities. The actual truth from my own experience is that Birmingham School of Law provides a non-traditional format for competent students who otherwise would never have an opportunity to become attorneys. I dreamed about it as a little girl and thought I'd lost the opportunity since I made other career choices and decided to have a family. Boy was I ever wrong, and I thank God every day for finding this school after I retired. Each person has to decide their own path in life, but I studied hard, graduated early, and passed the July 2022 bar on my first testing, and I'm proud to say that Birmingham School of Law prepared me well without loading me up with student loan debt. Not everyone is cut out for law school, and not every law school is right for everyone. But, this school was worth the 400-mile drive back and forth weekend after weekend FOR ME. I'm not a genius by any means, so I believe any intelligent person who actually has the time required to put in real work can also be successful at Birmingham School of Law. I believe part of the problem with the low passage rate is that people fool themselves thinking that they can be a student, parent, employee, employer, caretaker of elderly parents, and everything else all at the same time. These non-traditional students are then heartbroken when they don't succeed at the impossible. I hope sharing my honest experience will help someone else make a well-informed decision about whether #Birminghamschooloflaw is the best strategy to help them meet their future career goals. After all, that's really what it is all about-- what one plans to do after passing the bar and whether your degree will take you there!
Made an account because I went here and transferred:

1. You made a mistake
2. You will regret it eventually
3. We understand, because I attended and almost everyone here went or will go to real law schools
4. There is no minimal criteria. You can be a felon without a BA and attend
5. Note you said "business model", Yale and UVA do not have business models.
6. Your (our?) school is not desirable, so they cannot hand-pick anything
7. "simple math of probabilities" suggest that diction is not so simple to you
8. We know you are not a genius, you attended Birmingham and stayed
9. The issue with non-traditional students is generally not outside commitments. It is that they are not cutout for school. Your classmates will, as a rule, fail at legal practice and regret the time and energy they applied at Birmingham.
I just like that you put Yale and UVA in the same group.

nixy

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by nixy » Sat Oct 01, 2022 12:15 pm

paperchaser wrote:
Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:54 pm
9. The issue with non-traditional students is generally not outside commitments. It is that they are not cutout for school. Your classmates will, as a rule, fail at legal practice and regret the time and energy they applied at Birmingham.
I'm going to nitpick this one particular point: "Non-traditional" is a label that encompasses a hugely diverse group of people and they are not "generally" "not cutout for school." There are successful non-trad students at laws schools throughout the rankings, and there are non-trads who legitimately struggle with outside commitments (law school as a parent is very different from law school as a non-parent, for instance). There are also non-trad students who aren't cut out for school, but it's not simply because they're non-trad.

(Also, all schools have business models, some are just better at hiding it than others.)

There is a small percentage of people out there for whom having a JD - any JD - is better than not having a JD, and given that Birmingham's annual cost is $8,340, it's a much better option than some of the very expensive bottom tier schools. (Like Golden Gate costs over $50k a year, that's ridiculous.) The problem is when people choose to go to Birmingham thinking it's going to open doors to big firms or clerkships or even most sort of ordinary legal jobs. I'm not going to claim there are enough people for whom Birmingham is worth it to justify its existence, nor do I know if the school sells itself accurately to prospective students, but it could be worth it for a small specific subset of students.

paperchaser

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by paperchaser » Mon Oct 03, 2022 5:08 pm

VirginiaFan wrote:
Sat Oct 01, 2022 9:21 am
paperchaser wrote:
Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:54 pm
BSOLJD wrote:
Thu Sep 29, 2022 2:19 pm
I wondered if I had made a mistake going to Birmingham School of Law. But, I'll tell you today I have absolutely no regrets. It's so easy for one to discard things we don't understand. I admit that the school doesn't adequately explain that LAW SCHOOL isn't for everyone, but misunderstanding the school's purpose is not a valid reason to attack the school. The business model seems to accept almost everyone who has money to pay and meet minimal criteria. Contrast that against schools that hand pick their students based on who's highly likely to pass the bar and the end result is that a higher percentage of the hand-picked selection will pass by design every time-- it is simple math of probabilities. The actual truth from my own experience is that Birmingham School of Law provides a non-traditional format for competent students who otherwise would never have an opportunity to become attorneys. I dreamed about it as a little girl and thought I'd lost the opportunity since I made other career choices and decided to have a family. Boy was I ever wrong, and I thank God every day for finding this school after I retired. Each person has to decide their own path in life, but I studied hard, graduated early, and passed the July 2022 bar on my first testing, and I'm proud to say that Birmingham School of Law prepared me well without loading me up with student loan debt. Not everyone is cut out for law school, and not every law school is right for everyone. But, this school was worth the 400-mile drive back and forth weekend after weekend FOR ME. I'm not a genius by any means, so I believe any intelligent person who actually has the time required to put in real work can also be successful at Birmingham School of Law. I believe part of the problem with the low passage rate is that people fool themselves thinking that they can be a student, parent, employee, employer, caretaker of elderly parents, and everything else all at the same time. These non-traditional students are then heartbroken when they don't succeed at the impossible. I hope sharing my honest experience will help someone else make a well-informed decision about whether #Birminghamschooloflaw is the best strategy to help them meet their future career goals. After all, that's really what it is all about-- what one plans to do after passing the bar and whether your degree will take you there!
Made an account because I went here and transferred:

1. You made a mistake
2. You will regret it eventually
3. We understand, because I attended and almost everyone here went or will go to real law schools
4. There is no minimal criteria. You can be a felon without a BA and attend
5. Note you said "business model", Yale and UVA do not have business models.
6. Your (our?) school is not desirable, so they cannot hand-pick anything
7. "simple math of probabilities" suggest that diction is not so simple to you
8. We know you are not a genius, you attended Birmingham and stayed
9. The issue with non-traditional students is generally not outside commitments. It is that they are not cutout for school. Your classmates will, as a rule, fail at legal practice and regret the time and energy they applied at Birmingham.
I just like that you put Yale and UVA in the same group.
You're welcome. Very few law schools have a "business model." Egregious to write that and think it is okay or normal.

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paperchaser

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by paperchaser » Mon Oct 03, 2022 5:12 pm

nixy wrote:
Sat Oct 01, 2022 12:15 pm
paperchaser wrote:
Thu Sep 29, 2022 5:54 pm
9. The issue with non-traditional students is generally not outside commitments. It is that they are not cutout for school. Your classmates will, as a rule, fail at legal practice and regret the time and energy they applied at Birmingham.
I'm going to nitpick this one particular point: "Non-traditional" is a label that encompasses a hugely diverse group of people and they are not "generally" "not cutout for school." There are successful non-trad students at laws schools throughout the rankings, and there are non-trads who legitimately struggle with outside commitments (law school as a parent is very different from law school as a non-parent, for instance). There are also non-trad students who aren't cut out for school, but it's not simply because they're non-trad.

(Also, all schools have business models, some are just better at hiding it than others.)

There is a small percentage of people out there for whom having a JD - any JD - is better than not having a JD, and given that Birmingham's annual cost is $8,340, it's a much better option than some of the very expensive bottom tier schools. (Like Golden Gate costs over $50k a year, that's ridiculous.) The problem is when people choose to go to Birmingham thinking it's going to open doors to big firms or clerkships or even most sort of ordinary legal jobs. I'm not going to claim there are enough people for whom Birmingham is worth it to justify its existence, nor do I know if the school sells itself accurately to prospective students, but it could be worth it for a small specific subset of students.
Some non-trad students thrive. Most probably should not be in law school and score sub-160.

All institutions, entities, and individuals have a business model in that they take in and/or expend financial resources, even pets, infants, non-profits, the federal government, and dementia patients. They do not all have a "business model" unless it is so broadly defined as to be meaningless. Yes, Yale Law has to balance its budget and calibrate tuition and scholarships with some restraints, like everyone else.

Birmingham will ruin your life in so many ways. It is really irresponsible to provide them any cover here, no matter how minimal.

nixy

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by nixy » Mon Oct 03, 2022 7:01 pm

paperchaser wrote:
Mon Oct 03, 2022 5:12 pm
Some non-trad students thrive. Most probably should not be in law school and score sub-160.
If you mean only non-trads at Birmingham, sure, maybe. If you mean non-trads across all schools, you're talking out your ass.
All institutions, entities, and individuals have a business model in that they take in and/or expend financial resources, even pets, infants, non-profits, the federal government, and dementia patients. They do not all have a "business model" unless it is so broadly defined as to be meaningless. Yes, Yale Law has to balance its budget and calibrate tuition and scholarships with some restraints, like everyone else.
My point wasn't to boost Birmingham but to diss Yale and UVA. They're driven by their bottom line and the brand they're trying to promote and maintain as much as any other institution; they're just a whole lot fancier about it.
Birmingham will ruin your life in so many ways. It is really irresponsible to provide them any cover here, no matter how minimal.
The only cover I'm giving them is that they're slightly less life-ruining than a lot of their competitors because they're cheap.

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by paperchaser » Wed Oct 05, 2022 1:09 pm

nixy wrote:
Mon Oct 03, 2022 7:01 pm
paperchaser wrote:
Mon Oct 03, 2022 5:12 pm
Some non-trad students thrive. Most probably should not be in law school and score sub-160.
If you mean only non-trads at Birmingham, sure, maybe. If you mean non-trads across all schools, you're talking out your ass.
All institutions, entities, and individuals have a business model in that they take in and/or expend financial resources, even pets, infants, non-profits, the federal government, and dementia patients. They do not all have a "business model" unless it is so broadly defined as to be meaningless. Yes, Yale Law has to balance its budget and calibrate tuition and scholarships with some restraints, like everyone else.
My point wasn't to boost Birmingham but to diss Yale and UVA. They're driven by their bottom line and the brand they're trying to promote and maintain as much as any other institution; they're just a whole lot fancier about it.
Birmingham will ruin your life in so many ways. It is really irresponsible to provide them any cover here, no matter how minimal.
The only cover I'm giving them is that they're slightly less life-ruining than a lot of their competitors because they're cheap.
Look, this is TLS, where the prevailing wisdom is that outside of the top 50 schools, most should be shut down. Most non-trads go to those schools unless you are claiming Yale and UVA and Penn are full of non-trads while the TT and below are full of traditional K-JDs. So yes, "most" non-trads should not be there, I will qualify this by saying most traditional students should not be in law school either.

Yes, every institution cares about its bottom line and brand to some extent, no matter how negligible. Yale and UVA and Doctors Without Borders are no different than Exxon Mobil in this regard. The professors at Yale are not conspiring on how much to jack up tuition to increase their salaries or worrying about bankruptcy. Their financial concerns are as peripheral as can be for a non-profit law school.

That is still providing cover. You are signaling to people applying to those schools that someone educated like yourself will look upon them more favorably at Birmingham than Cardozo or NYLS, whereas making any distinction between them is unwise.

nixy

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by nixy » Wed Oct 05, 2022 2:29 pm

What? I’m not remotely saying I’ll factor a Birmingham student over a Cardozo or NYLS student - don’t put words in my mouth. Cardozo’s perfectly respectable, NYLS is overpriced and probably kind of predatory but at least it’s ABA accredited, and Birmingham is in another category entirely.

I’m saying only that if someone is in Alabama and is currently in a job where the JD will give them a boost (some jobs require advanced degrees for advancement, for instance), they might as well go to BSOL for cheap. Don’t read anything more into my comments. Like I said, I don’t know if that audience is big enough to justify the school’s existence. There can be a place for a school to cater to that demographic, that’s all.

(I also think you’re uninformed about non-trads in the T14.

Yale: 15% directly from college
38% 1-2 years out
27% 3-4 years out
20% 5+ years out

UPenn: 75% of the class is more than a year out from undergrad

UVA: range of age of students is 19 to 34 (average age is 24))

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by paperchaser » Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:14 pm

nixy wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 2:29 pm
What? I’m not remotely saying I’ll factor a Birmingham student over a Cardozo or NYLS student - don’t put words in my mouth. Cardozo’s perfectly respectable, NYLS is overpriced and probably kind of predatory but at least it’s ABA accredited, and Birmingham is in another category entirely.

I’m saying only that if someone is in Alabama and is currently in a job where the JD will give them a boost (some jobs require advanced degrees for advancement, for instance), they might as well go to BSOL for cheap. Don’t read anything more into my comments. Like I said, I don’t know if that audience is big enough to justify the school’s existence. There can be a place for a school to cater to that demographic, that’s all.

(I also think you’re uninformed about non-trads in the T14.

Yale: 15% directly from college
38% 1-2 years out
27% 3-4 years out
20% 5+ years out

UPenn: 75% of the class is more than a year out from undergrad

UVA: range of age of students is 19 to 34 (average age is 24))
"Cardozo's perfectly respectable" lol got it, any credibility just went up in flames. Again, you are defending scam institutions. NYLS is the definition of predatory and the stories from students are horrific.

Students less than 5 years out are almost all traditional students. At most a fifth are non-traditional, and many of those 5+ years went to good undergrads and had real jobs, not the GED-community college-law school route romanticized endlessly.

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by nixy » Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:41 pm

Cardozo is ranked 52 in USNWR; it’s not a T14, and it suffers from having to compete with all the higher ranked schools in NYC, but it’s fine. Are you thinking of Pace or something?

And non-trad = not a K-JD. If you’re going to start adding requirements like “did a GED” or “went to community college” or “didn’t have a previous career” you’re not talking about non-trads, you’re talking about a specific subset of non-trads (who yeah probably do struggle more, but for those specific reasons, not because they didn’t go straight to law school from undergrad).

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by paperchaser » Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:55 pm

nixy wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 4:41 pm
Cardozo is ranked 52 in USNWR; it’s not a T14, and it suffers from having to compete with all the higher ranked schools in NYC, but it’s fine. Are you thinking of Pace or something?

And non-trad = not a K-JD. If you’re going to start adding requirements like “did a GED” or “went to community college” or “didn’t have a previous career” you’re not talking about non-trads, you’re talking about a specific subset of non-trads (who yeah probably do struggle more, but for those specific reasons, not because they didn’t go straight to law school from undergrad).
Cardozo is in TT based on its ranking. Most students will not land a position that can reasonably service the average debt load of alumni. It is a scam. Pace is worse, but why even draw distinctions here? Fordham is pretty fugazi at this point.

Historically, once law school became the preferred intake method as opposed to apprenticeship, K-JD was almost unheard of. Law schools were more like MBAs in that work experience was expected. Calling an MBA or JD student with a McKinsey stint under their belt "non-trad" is really misleading. When you say non-trad, most people think of a single parent with five children and as many part-time jobs, burning the midnight oil reading casebooks with a baby monitor sounding off while he or she runs out of milk. Or a veteran with the mental and physical scars to prove it, showing off his hard-won Middle East-granted knowledge to baby-faced 23 year-olds who don't even know what a limited partner is. Some Georgetown BA who worked at BAML for four years then decided securities law is their life's calling so they go to Northwestern is not "non-trad."

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Re: Birmingham School of Law

Post by nixy » Wed Oct 05, 2022 5:05 pm

Maybe that’s what you think non-trad means, but again, you’re putting conditions on that category that don’t exist.

Besides, single parents who’ve juggled a lot of jobs and vets deserve to go to law school too.

Seriously? What are you waiting for?

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