Three Toilets Flushed

Finally, some sense in this world. There were plans for THREE new law schools in New York and all have been put on hold. There are already 15 law schools in NY. The schools made the decision not to open because of:
an ailing economy, state government budget woes and doubts about whether there are enough legal jobs to support the new schools in addition to the 15 existing ones.

The three toilets New York was spared are: State University of New York at Stony Brook on Long Island, St. John Fisher College in Rochester and SUNY Binghamton, which is only on hold until 2017-18.

St. John Fisher spent $25,000 on a study that claimed there was a demand for a new law school. Hell, I could have told them that there’s no need for another law school for $10,000. Or they could have figured it out for free, by reading the scamblogs, or asking the thousands of unemployed JDs roaming the streets of New York.

Deans at other New York law schools sprang to action at the thought of new toilets entering the market and possibly poaching from their pools of available suckers.The hypocrites wondered if, New York’s job market could absorb as many as 1,500 more law school graduates the three new schools could produce each year.

No it can’t absorb them, and we don’t need the 3,750 new graduates NY turns out now:
The state Labor Department has estimated there will be openings for just over 2,000 lawyers a year through 2016 in New York. And law firms have been shedding jobs in the last few years. There now are about 150,000 lawyers in New York, the most of any state in the country.

Eight Times Not A Charm

You just can’t make this stuff up. After graduating from law school 20 years ago, this tool took and failed the bar 7 times before finally passing. Wasn’t Einstein’s definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

Well, it took two decades but he finally passed. But he’s still not going to be able to practice. New Hampshire won’t admit him because of both his outstanding debt and a few criminal indiscretions. They also weren’t impressed that he had been unemployed for the past 20 years. He must have been studying for the bar.

I’m going to have to side with New Hampshire on this one, this guy sounds like a total tool. He certainly doesn’t know how to win friends and influence people. Here is what he told the committee:

He didn’t enjoy a brief gig as a bartender, G.W. told the committee, and felt the job “was beneath me.”And, as far as paying off his student loans was concerned, “if I owed a measly $30,000, that’s an amount of money that certainly could be paid off with a, you know, $10-an-hour job or something of that nature,” he said. “But because there’s $120,000 worth of interest on that $30,000 principal, realistically, I need a good job in order to pay that off.”And I was trained to practice law; I wasn’t trained to do anything else. And I have no desire to do anything else at this point.”

Cooley Profs Kiss Pig

I saw this video on the TaxProf Blog.

Two Thomas Cooley law professors kissed pigs to raise money for charity. I hope the pigs were provided with vaccines and veterinary care. Doesn’t appear to have been any tongue, so perhaps the pigs weren’t traumatized and scarred for life.

If you could have your law school debt erased for a kiss, would you rather swap spit with a pig or a professor? I’ll take the pig.

The Word Is Out

The message that law school is a scam and waste of money is getting out according to the The ABA Journal.

The writer hits most of the major points, and although she quotes my blog: “Keep my diploma in the bathroom in case I run out of toilet paper” she doesn’t bother to cite it (I’ll take Journalism 101 for $200, Alex), but she does provide a rudimentary overview of the movement.

It’s becoming a mini-epidemic: Disgruntled recent law school graduates or current students complaining, sometimes with venom, on so-called scamblogs. Bloggers bemoan their law school education, their debt, their lack of suitable jobs and a legal system they say has failed them. Law school, despite a promise of employment in the legal profession, is little more than a scam to get money from students, they argue.

And she does note the best news of all, that the folks doing the scamming are being forced to hear our voices:

And an increasingly concerned legal community is paying attention, although its response may not satisfy the angriest bloggers. The American Bar Association is working in several areas to improve disclosure to prospective law students so they understand the full impact of their decision to enter the legal field.

It’s great that the word is out, but this is just a first step. It’s incomprehensible that law schools are permitted to fudge employment statistics in an effort to lure students in so that they can turn a profit at the student’s expense. This is not tolerated for any other purchase made – why is there even a discussion about this?

Yellen’s subcommittee is looking at revisions to Standard 509, which describes the consumer information law schools should publish. It is considering a proposal that would require schools to disclose more detailed placement information—not just the overall employment number—and also to break it down by categories. Under this proposal, law schools would have to disclose whether the employment is full- or part-time and temporary or permanent.

How is it possible that the schools are permitted to NOT disclose this? Seems clear to me and everyone else who was suckered out of $120,000 – tell the truth or give back the money. I firmly believe that every graduate that didn’t get a job in the legal industry that relied on their school’s false information and advertising deserves a refund. And you can quote me.

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