Tuesday, April 30, 2013

This Is The Best Year to Apply To Law School EVER.

It's not a stretch to say that fortune smiles on the 22 year old K-JDer who comes out of the pipeline this year, or for the polished professional who has decided to spruce up the resume with those two magic words that guarantee* employability: juris doctorate.**

But don't take my word for it; I'm a craven shill merely wanting your money.

Let's look at some REPUTABLE and NEUTRAL journalism!

Here's nationally award-winning news magazine U.S. News and World Report:

I would agree that if there were no law firms hiring or salaries were plummeting, now would not be a good time to attend law school. However, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, long-term job growth for lawyers is expected to be 10 percent between 2010 and 2020.
...
Combined with the predicted job growth in the law industry and the retirement of baby boomers, attending law school now could be a promising investment if you are passionate about the practice of law or related fields, like mergers and acquisitions, real estate and special situations investing, where a legal background can prove invaluable.

Yes, act NOW and you and your 150 LSAT will be able to coast into your associateship with Patty Hewes. And hey, even if that doesn't work out, businesses will go gaga over bringing you into their M&A and financing deals. Everyone will be impressed with your credentials and they ALL will want to blow you, even the straight dudes.

Need more proof that you're a hot commodity? Check out this article from something called "The Hatchet" (IT CUTS TO THE TRUTH):

Competition among top law schools has grown fiercer to fill first-year classes, giving students more power to leverage for bigger aid packages. Some students said they have had more luck bargaining at GW than other universities.
...
Senior Ella Gladman picked GW Law School after applying to a dozen others over the past year, but her decision hinged on negotiation.
...
For Gladman, the back-and forth began after GW offered her $10,000 a year, which was less than what she got from some others. But after she asked for more financial aid from the school – leveraging the higher offers from other schools – GW hiked up its offer to $17,000, while others, like University of Southern California Gould School of Law, held their ground.

Now, when she's studying international or public interest law, she'll be that much richer!

It's a buyer's market, law grads. We want you. Badly. With the massive hose-blast of money and a job waiting for you at graduation, are you seriously going to look elsewhere?

*-Not really guaranteed, just, like 93%. Okay, not really.

**-Intentional. If you use "juris doctor," people will think you're too smart to work for them.

Monday, April 29, 2013

So-Called Scientists Rag on Prestigious Intellectual Property Programs

Over at science to law, some Einstein has made the brilliant discovery that the US News IP Rankings are BS.

People use prestige as a shorthand, and very few lawyers that I know of actually keep track of which lower-ranked schools have invested in their IP programs of late....

Second, even if potential employers might appreciate the value of a particular IP specialty program, the clients who hire those lawyers might not....

[A]nyone urging strict reliance on the IP sub-rankings operates with a flawed and unstated assumption: That the substance of your legal education — i.e., which courses you take — matters more to employers than vague notions of school prestige. Applicants, particularly those poised to drop $200k on a degree, desperately want this to be true. It’s not. While having a few more patent law courses under your belt might seem like a good way to get a leg up, you’ll get a far bigger (and more lasting) leg up by choosing a top overall school.

Eureka! This would seem to be an affront upon the ranked and respected programs at Santa Clara, Cardozo, American, New Hampshire, and IIT/Chicago-Kent.

The person who wrote this is allegedly a big-firm patent attorney. So the real question becomes this: why is a scientist, a clinician trained in the rigorous scientific method, perpetuating the prestige-craving? Why is he not spreading awareness of those "lower-ranked schools" that have excellent IP programs - there's practically one in every major metro area! Why does his devotion to scientific truth not translate into a desire to hire entry-level IP lawyers with superior knowledge and training instead of random Columbia grads? Wouldn't a REAL scientist believe in knowledge and not what the uninformed masses believe?

Here's a better question: who would you rather believe, a well-ranked law school that has graduated scores of scientists into thrilling IP jobs, or one scientist who had a lunchroom chat at the office?

Yeah. In other news, there's (probably?) still time to enroll in Santa Clara, Cardozo, American, New Hampshire, and IIT/Chicago-Kent!

Friday, April 26, 2013

Traitor Activity Alert: Nancy Rapoport, UNLV Thankfully Blames US News

Nancy Rapoport, Interim (there's still time!) Dean of the Prestigious William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas* has written a law review essay that you should read carefully since she is a known traitor. Called Managing U.S. News & World Report - The Enron Way, I thought for sure it would be an excellent, head-nodding example of blame-shifting and placing everything on Saint Morse's shoulders. It sort-of gets there, but there's enough ambiguous finger-wagging for me to be displeased.

Well, for starters, she exposes what she believes to be the inner workings of a law deans' mind using language that would make a sophomore psychology major blush:

Cognitive dissonance (the subconscious rationalization of two competing moral views) is easy to spot in fudging the rankings. Someone who thinks of herself as honest and who still, say, plays with her school’s placement figures to make them look better than they really are is subconsciously justifying her “creativity” by deciding that U.S. News’s questions are so bogus that she shouldn’t have to take them seriously. If she’s not sure that her answers are accurate, she can always assume that someone else will catch her mistake (diffusion of authority). She can reason that, because other schools are hiding their bad placement numbers by hiring their own graduates, her school should do the same (social pressure). When schools let the U.S. News rankings drive their own admissions decisions (e.g., preferring LSATs over work experience or “striving”) or scholarship awards (buying higher LSATs with full rides plus stipends)—or when schools set the size of their entering classes and transfers solely to keep their LSATs and UGPAs high—those decisions are all perfect examples of anchoring bias (letting the rankings drive all other decisions).

First, since she is a dean, the inner workings of a deans mind are PRIVILEGED and she should not be stating them publicly.

Second, I despise the idea of making what our best deans do so science-like. What the Valvoline Dean does is an art. When Cooley publishes its own convoluted law school rankings and Don Deluc goes on the warpath against everyone from scambloggers to the Michigan Bar, that's creativity, not some hack output of a psychological theory. It's like she's trying to lesson the greatness of these endeavors. If Rapoport can't even appreciate the artfulness of the scammiest actors, how will she appreciate it when they manage to dodge reform effort after reform effort? Chalk it up to more pop psychology? (Survival mechanism? 3rd stage of grief?).

But that pales in comparison to this poopwork:

“Rankings management” just reminds me too much of the “earnings management” that I followed when I devoured every news article out there about the Enron scandal.

Enron, good gravy! Enron broke securities laws. Guess what? Law schools don't even have to follow those! Analogy bad, argument over.

But the article does have a good point, despite her not wanting to play ball completely: it's all US News' Fault. If only US News would change its rankings formula, law deans would be systematically rewarded for doing the right things and they surely wouldn't increase tuition to take any of that sweet, sweet student loan crude or present themselves dishonestly to attract superior students.

Of course not. So at least Nancy did something right by blame-shifting. Because in the end, that's the message you SHOULD take away from her article, that there is absolutely nothing the law schools can do until a third-party third-rate magazine gets its act together. Our hands are tied. Blame Bob Morse. 

Sounds good to me!

*That's the only law school in the only state with legalized prostitution. If you want to specialize in Civil Hooker Law, get on the bus now!

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Brookyln - DISMISSED; ABA - INEFFECTUAL

Oh my good gravy, what a day. I don't know what stars are visible in your hemisphere this fine spring night, but in mine, the constellation DOLLARZ is visible just off the western horizon, while the constellation GRADUATE WAH-WAH can clearly be seen to the southeast.

FIRST, in a surprise to no one, the lawsuit against Joan Wexler's Most Glorious Academy, Brooklyn Law School, has been DISMISSED. Oh, how the little ones will feel crushing disappointment to find out disgorgement of profits will NOT be in their stockings this year! From the WSJ:

In an opinion earlier this week, New York State Supreme Court Justice David J. Schmidt in Brooklyn noted the school’s own data was sufficient to “enable a reasonable person to determine that most graduates were earning modest incomes.”

Uh, yeah, bitchez, we told y'all you was gonna be poor! When we give a median salary around six figures, that doesn't mean half the graduates make more. Be a reasonable person and assume the school is hoodwinking you!

Oh, and you'll never guess what law school David Schmidt apparently went to...

POUR SOME SUGAR ON ME

SECOND - and you reformers are going to love this one - the ABA is rockin' its rudder and laying the foundation nicely for a hung jury. Check this awesomeness out:

The lack of consensus about what ails law schools and how to fix them was on display Wednesday during a daylong conference hosted by the American Bar Association's Task Force on the Future of Education.

Participants in the forum struggled for agreement about what is driving the rising costs of legal education—or about how schools and regulators should respond to declining job prospects for new lawyers and flagging interest in law degrees.
...
The attendees also appeared to struggle with whether the task force's mission lies with the needs of law schools, the larger profession or the broader society. When asked specifically what should be done, the responses fell across the board. 

Go, ABA, go! This is exactly what we predicted would happen and it's exactly what the law schools need and want. If the ABA is good for anything, it's good for getting a group of blockheads together with enough diversity of interests to stall any real change to the $tatu$ quo.

I mean, look at these people, they can't even agree on why they're there. The ABA is such an ineffectual organization a group of its Most Worthy Delegates cannot reach a formidable consensus on what the task force's mission is.

The one thing essential to all true lawyer work is that there's a client. They don't have one, and some of these people think their goal should be to help "the broader society." You think one bit of good is going to come out of this "task force?" If you do, you're so dumb you probably applied to Brooklyn Law School and thought you'd have a livable salary, you unreasonable person who can't interpret numbers right in front of you.

Also, get a load of this, same article:

"What the task force is doing is very difficult politically. It's very difficult conceptually. And its very difficult pragmatically," said Valparaiso University School of Law dean Jay Conison, the task force's reporter.

Holy shit, Jay Conison? The guy who wrote one of the scammiest articles ever on the versatility of the JD, that Jay Conison? The one who's jumping ship to go run an even bigger dead-end diploma mill than the one he's at? Wow!

Reform is "very difficult conceptually." Good one, Jay! I mean, any scamblogger worth his web account could have a legal education system that works better than the current one drawn up in 5 minutes. But I love the idea of claiming it's difficult to conceive of reform, sort of like how string theory is "very difficult conceptually." What Jay probably meant deep down is that it's difficult to conceive of ways to exploit for profit a system that hasn't been developed yet; to that end, he's correct.

Predictably, and admirably, this task force was designed to fail from the get-go. You put a large group of law deans, BigLaw partners, judges, and bar representatives in a room - most of whom have resisted stepping on any toes in the same system they're critiquing to get where they are - and you expect anything to get done? Please. If you really had any interest in reform, your task force would be something like "Deborah Rhode, David Yellen, and [judge whose clerk didn't hang up immediately]."

Color me shocked, and incredibly happy.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

A Note on Spam and the Virtues of Blue Comedy

Lately, this blog has been receiving considerably more spam than it used to. Two points:

1. I blame the SCAMBLOGGERS for the increase, just as I blame the SCAMBLOGGERS for the spreading negative perceptions of law school. Here's looking at you, David Lat and Matt Leichter.

2. I don't bother with filtering it and even if I see it, in most cases (read: not illegal), I don't intend to delete it. As many of you readers found law school a worthwhile investment, I have no doubt you'll find many of the products and services offered quite useful, if not transformative. Because if you're dumb enough to believe that law schools place 90% of their graduates in respectable jobs, you're clearly dumb enough to believe that 60 year olds can look like 35 year olds, that we can solve cancer by eating blueberry extract, and that you can not only easily get a 13-inch penis but that you and your lover(s) want you to have one.*

On that note, I'm off to sell first-class tickets to the American lower upper middle class. It's a luxury trip, so make sure you bring your shrimp fork and preferred Cabernet glass.

*one time I was smoking cigars with two male deans from prestigious, lowly-ranked law schools. The following dialogue ensued:

Dean 1: So the other night I took a young woman out for an evening and things went quite well. We came back to my place.
Dean 2: You give her the grand tour?
Dean 1: Yeah, 5000 square feet and it ended in my bedroom.
Dean 2: You show her the ex-wife's closet?
Dean 1: Of course, I let her pick out a handbag. Anyway, things starting getting interesting and I stopped and said now I have to warn you of something.
Dean 2: Disclaimers and exclusions.
Dean 1: Yes, I said, now I have to tell you I have a 14-inch cock. And her eyes got as wide as a 1L seconds before a contracts exam, but of course she just had to SEE it. So I pulled my pants off and she says "that's not that big at all!" I said "well, I measured from the back of my butt to the tip of the johnson." She laughs and says that's not how you do it.
Dean 2: What did you say to that?
Dean 1: I said "Really? That's how we measure our employment stats, include a bunch of ass that doesn't matter."
Dean 1, Dean 2, Me: (disproportionally-uproarious laughter)

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

A Scammy Orange Rose in Texas: Foundations and Forgivable Loans

Perhaps the best article I've seen on the witch hunt being conducted against the University of Texas Law School can be found at the Austin Statesman from yesterday. As it explains:

Central to the investigation by [the Attorney General]’s office is a program under which the foundation provided forgivable personal loans to some professors on the law dean’s recommendation. The program, which began when UT President Bill Powers was dean of the School of Law, was deemed inappropriate for a public university by a UT System report released last year after a $500,000 forgivable loan to Powers’ successor as dean, Larry Sager, came to light. Sager received the loan at a time when salaries for deans and vice presidents were frozen.

Emphasis added. As the article explains, a "forgivable loan" is a " “golden handcuff" (Dean Farnsworth's words) where the recipient is induced to stay at the university because they get a large amount of cash up front as a loan and for each year the person stays at the university, part of the loan is forgiven and/or they are paid deferable compensation that can be used to pay the loan (options for your tax needs! nice!). 

Because - as every good lawprof knows - a six-figure salary, tenure, and one the world's cushiest jobs in one of the country's trendiest mid-sized cities simply isn't enough to keep law professors from jumping to lucrative partnerships at Baker Botts doing oil law. 

Now, law foundations have been around for decades to help support needy law schools, but Texas took it to whole new heights of near-secret compensation. As the article quotes Dean Farnsworth, "'It’s a common recruiting tool.'"

What the good dean isn't telling you is that Texas did it bigger and better than almost everyone else.

Reviewing Guidestar reports, one learns the following:

-That in 2010, William & Mary, the nation''s oldest law school, had a foundation with 35M in assets, 2-3M in annual income, and expenses of a whopping 55k that went to help law professors do their thing while the majority of expenses went towards direct support of the school itself.

-That in 2010, Virginia's law foundation, possibly the nation's largest, had revenue of 22M with expenditures around 13M. But, while being large enough to pay five six-figure salaries to its own staff to manage 357M in assets (50+M investment income in 2010), they did not list a single dime in Part IX as a grant to an individual.

-That no other public law school that I reviewed (incld. Washington, Iowa, and Alabama) even came close to matching the almost $867k Texas' foundation spent on its "faculty retention program" and the $859k it spent on "faculty salaries support." The difference is your guess as good as mine. That's over 1.7M that I'm pretty sure when straight into LawPockets directly from the foundation. (How do you "support" a salary, anyway? Give it a cot and some coffee? Tell it you love it no matter where it's spent?) Note also that they list these as programs under "other expenses" instead of in line 2 - "grants and assistance to individuals." That's some very subtle - and impressive - work. As a 501(c)(3) organization, the foundation can't be distributing its earnings for the inurement of private individuals. See, e.g., John Marshall Law School v. U.S., 228 Ct. Cl. 902 (1981)(interest-free, unsecured loans to founder of unaccredited law school a no-no). You list it as a "program" so that it's not even an issue where someone can claim Sager is a relevant "private individual." Brilliant!

At this point, I'd like to reiterate something else in the article:

The report by Barry Burgdorf, the system’s vice chancellor and general counsel, recommended that no compensation flow directly from the foundation to faculty members, even though that practice broke no laws.

Emphasis added. I agree, and nothing herein should be construed as alleging that the law school foundation violated any law, treaty, regulation, ordinance, etc. I mean, sure, according to the Foundation's IRS form, Larry Sager was directly compensated $106k in 2010 as an "independent contractor" of the Foundation who advised them where money should be spent. Sure, paying excessive compensation to an individual - like 100k to an independent contractor for doing the same thing he does in his ordinary day job - is also a no-no under 501(c)(3) rules. 

But the trustees, all prestigious men and women of superior life achievement and rank and wealth, clearly thought it necessary to compensate Mr. Sager with a little "bump" over his meager salary from the school. And who are we - or the IRS - to judge them? There's nothing to see here, friends, but the law business in all of its ethical, law-abiding, society-enriching glory.

I say "GO TEXAS." While others placed their overpayments to deans and lawprofs on the books in public tax filings or in other public records maintained by state systems, Texas used its law foundation to put a little somethin' somethin' more into the academians' pockets all while the pesky state legislature froze salaries and wanted the law school to cut back. That's praise-worthy, and all the other law deans are jealous that they couldn't get their foundations to pull that off, too.

RULE 85: DO NOT LEAVE COOKIES IN THE JAR WHEN LAW PROFS COME OVER.

I am, however, saddened at how this all came to light in the first place:

[N]o interviews [by the AG's office] were conducted with faculty members, whose open-records request brought Sager’s loan to light in December 2011. Some faculty members were upset to learn not only about his loan but also that some of their colleagues had received six-figure loans.

Tsk tsk tsk, JealousProfs. Don't kill the golden goose just because you didn't wake up in time for Sunday morning eggs! Wake up and get yourself a seat at the table! Did no one on the faculty step up to enforce the RULE of LAW after prior faculty departures?!

Monday, April 22, 2013

Lewis & Clark Students Complain About First Amendment, Clearly Don't Get It

For those who may have missed it, a kerfuffle arose last week at Lewis & Clark College over the appearance of John G. Roberts, Chief Justice of the United States. To make a short story even shorter, undergrad student newspaper wanted to run a story on Roberts' visit, Dean Robert Klonoff,who now publicly regrets it, held up the story until it could be cleared by the Supreme Court press officer, which was not necessary.

Being petty little undergraduates, the editors of said student newspaper have their underpants ruffled about this:

When Ruiz questioned the legalities of such restrictions by Chief Justice Roberts’ office, a College official informed Ruiz that his tone will not be “tolerated” and that the Dean of Students Anna Gonzalez was informed of the situation.
...
Two emails were sent to the Law School expressing the urgency of this matter and the impending 5 p.m. deadline. The Law School did not send a copy of the article to the Supreme Court until 11:36 p.m. Wednesday evening­—over six hours past deadline.
...
On Friday, Kolonoff informed Oregonian reporter Betsy Hammond that the article was only sent to the Supreme Court as a “heads-up,” yet his email to Chief Justice Roberts’ office states, “Attached is the college newspaper article about the Chief Justice’s visit. Please let me know if it meets with your approval.”
...
LC’s Student Media Board bylaws assert that “the student press at Lewis & Clark is free from censorship and advance approval of content.” That said, the Office of Public Affairs and Communication and the Law School both independently claimed that they were given explicit instructions from the Chief Justice’s office that the article would need to be approved.

Ah, undergrads.

I sincerely hope these little whippersnappers find their way into paying law school tuition. By enrolling in an excellent law school (now over 200 ABA approved!), they would learn the following extremely valuable lessons:

1. There is the First Amendment, and then there is "the First Amendment." You have the freedom of speech, unless you're going to criticize someone rich and/or powerful or express a bitingly contrary opinion; in that case, you can go to Canada, hippie.

2. Law deans don't owe you any kind of a duty to tell the truth. The dean's statement that it was just a "heads-up" email after placing the prior restraint on your article was so obviously false and dumb that you would have to be a fool to believe it. As a result, there is no material deception at work. Like a law dean would ever need to lie and cover up his own misdeeds...

3. Student bylaws do not mean a thing. Just like real laws, no one actually reads them unless they're trying to escape punishment, and they exist mostly for show purposes.

4. Getting a sitting Supreme Court justice - especially the Chief Justice - to show up at a rinky-dink law school on the wrong coast is a major coup. Your administrators can milk this for like 4-5 years to reel in the fishies. They would likely kill endangered animals, fulfill underlings' wildest sexual fantasies, and pay Russian mobsters under the table to get a Supreme Court Justice to roll up in a black luxury car - even Kagan. They are not going to be bothered by some stupid kid spouting about his "first amendment rights" and his bratty "tone."

Injecting the first amendment to college administrators? Dude's lucky he didn't get expelled, acting like he has rights superior to John Roberts' right to monitor what people say about him, or the dean's rights to ensure no one's writing a hint of criticism towards the Legal Rock Star.

But clearly, these two do have potential to learn and practice law. I hope they enroll so as not to be embarrassing themselves with this sort of lewd Constitution-injecting crapolla in the future.

Friday, April 19, 2013

From JD to Bidne$$! Holy Mother of Custard, You 0Ls Are Dumb

With a HatTip to JD Underground, I give you this gem of glorious scamdom from the ABA Journal:

Half of more than 200 prelaw students responding to a survey by Kaplan Test Prep said they plan to use their law degree in a non-traditional legal field, according to a press release. Forty-three percent said they plan to use their law degree to pursue a job in the business world.

I can picture Nando and the Scambloggers now, collectively banging their small heads against a wall like a frustrated algebra teacher whose kids just won't understand that 2x + y = 5 and x + 3y = 10 means that x = 1 and y = 3 and u = more fucked than a hooker on shore leave day. "How do we reach these kids?!"

YOU CAN'T.

0Ls are convinced - like religious-level fervor - that you can get a job in "the business world" with a law degree. It's a safe outlet for when "the legal world" dries up and is over-saturated, that they'll just use that sparkling JD to land themselves in banking or insurance or consulting. You know, good white collar 35-hours-a-week stuff. 

They simply don't care that "the business world" is largely a myth and that your application to modern corporate America will be looked at by the HR drone who gets it as some sort of queer foreign artifact meant for another department, particularly the legal one. And that's only if they haven't rigged the computer software to filter out "JURIS DOCTOR" yet like it's a disease or Viagra spam. All your resume will do, 0L, is confuse the hell out of "the business world," as it wonders why you aren't practicing law. You know, the thing people go to law school for. 

But WHO is propagating the myth?

Why, look no further than your local law school administrator's office!

Here, for example is Jay Conison, Dean of Valparaiso and future dean of Charlotte, speaking after rattling off a list of job titles held by Valpo alums he knows personally (including "art gallery owner" and "fundraiser"):

The irony of this list is that law schools have long said that they prepare people for this range of business, government, and other professional careers. Law schools emphasize their expertise in developing highly versatile skills and competences -- in particular, critical reading, analytical reasoning, persuasive writing, and problem solving -- that are valuable in an enormous range of jobs, fields, and business settings. One commonly hears it said -- emphasizing this versatility -- that a J.D. is at least as useful as an M.B.A., if not more.

It's ironic alright!

Here's Wendy Perdue, Dean at Richmond, shilling away on Michigan's career services site:

A legal education is also tremendously versatile – the legal and analytic training that one gets in law school is a terrific foundation for a career in business, politics, public policy, non-profit organizations, law enforcement, and a host of other careers.

Tremendously!

And here it is in a BOOK targeted at 0Ls by a Ruth Lammert Reeves, a former dean of financial aid at Georgetown:

It is true, a law degree is perhaps the most versatile professional degree...

Lawyers can function in the business world, whereas MBA's cannot function in a legal position. And although lawyers cannot be doctors, neither are they as closely held to their "field" as MBA's.

RUTH I WANT TO HAVE YOUR SLIMY GREEN BABIES.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone, and remember, if you see a 0L, tell them the business world needs more JDs who can do that critical thinking thing and that the JD is so much more credited than the dreadful MBA. That extra year...it makes all the difference...when I'm buying Champagne...

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Selfish 0Ls Cause Budget Cuts at Catholic U., Bond Downgrade at Albany

Remember the good ol' days, when the ABA allowed number fudging, recent scam victims kept their brilliant minds from analyzing or even talking about the scam, and 0Ls lined up like herded cattle to get their one-way ticket to the lower upper middle class?

Thanks to a bunch of nerdy, socialist muckruckers, those days are over. But what scam critics ignore is that the fresh herd of 0Ls carrying crispy, delicious student loan packages didn't just enrich greedy law deans and professors, it also fueled the bloated bureaucracy of entire universities.

Consider Catholic University, a university chartered by the ************* Pope. Now that 0Ls are selfishly deciding to avoid overpriced legal education, university deans are being asked to trim their operational budgets by 20%. Does the selfishness of the law student know no bounds? Not only did you full sticker payers cross-subsidize your scholarship-earning (yes, earning) peers, you were cross-subsidizing the music department.

Now undergraduates at Catholic shall bear the wrath of the 0L's disregard for others' well-being:

[T]he art department foresees having to reduce class offerings significantly in the coming school year....

[T]he media studies department expects to cut one class, advanced journalism....

DID YOU THINK OF THE JOURNALISTS AND ART STUDENTS, SCAMBLOGGERS?!

At least you selfish bastards haven't crashed the golden Pope-mobile of Profits yet:

The law school is still profitable, there are just fewer revenues, said Victor Nakas, associate vice president for public affairs, in an official statement from the University.


In other news, as many of our thousands of loyal readers know, Standard & Poor (emphasis on "poor") downgraded Albany Law's bond rating to "stable." While we regret that S & P has apparently adopted the ludicrous scamblogger ideas that this is some sort of long-term, seismic shift that affects Albany's ability to pay its own debt, we at the Center remain confident and optimistic that new ways of scheming, wheeling, and dealing, will be devised before any material change to Albany's - or any other school's - credit-worthiness is adversely affected.

Tl;Dr: Albany still has a rating of A+++ from us, an entity in no way qualified to issue such ratings, but when has that ever stopped anyone from propagandizing?

Scam on, friends.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Shame on You Ironic and Ridiculous Grads in California, SHAME SHAME SHAME!

It's rare that I see a novel barb thrown at lazy law graduates who have raging senses of entitlement and a complete lack of personal responsibility. I've heard 'em all at teleconferences, faculty meetings, conventions, you name it. And since law professors are the ones who do the best critical thinking in the world, you would think their massive intellects would cover every acre of critical possibilities.

In the shock of all shocks, I saw a new one from an actual practicing attorney (a commoner of all things!). Enter Michael C. Sullivan, the brilliant San Diego attorney who's representing Thomas Jefferson in the Defense of Noble Virtue:

“What I find most ironic is that those individuals advertised themselves to law schools as great critical thinkers,” Sullivan said of the law-school graduate plaintiffs in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “Now they say they never considered the possibility that employment might include part-time jobs.”

Someone's channeling Voltaire! I mean, if we were to parse this quote, it doesn't make a god-damned lick of booger-eating sense, but who cares? What wit! Why, he's a motherfuckin' lyrical wordsmith motherfuckin' genius!

I mean, there's zealous advocacy, but then there's going above and beyond and making shit up as you go along. Accusing law applicants of advertising? Injecting "irony" where it doesn't belong? This is the rarefied air occupied by the likes of Larry "Underdog" Mitchell and Patrick "Valvoline Dean" Hobbs. Go, Sully, go!

Given the brilliance of the quote and who he represents, can we assume that he ripped it off from the TJLS admins and faculty? There's no way a practicing, licensed attorney would actually come up with such a brilliantly stupid bon mot, is there? Or has the academe of Southern California whiffed on hiring one of the greatest legal minds of our time?

Oh, and speaking of irony-that's-not-really-irony, check this editorial out:

Since [an article about the lawsuits] was published on April 1st, I thought that it might be a joke, but I am sorry to say it was not....

One of the students who joined the class action lawsuit stated that while he believes his degree is a useful tool, the lawsuit was intended to combat “systemic ongoing fraud prevalent in the legal education industry that could leave a generation of law students in dire financial crisis.” You cannot make this stuff up.

I have a lot of friends who are lawyers, law students or thinking about enrolling in law schools, and I applaud them. I know it is not easy or cheap. That being said, suing your school because your industry is changing is ridiculous.

The author is with "California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse." Uh oh, grads, did you hear that? Your suit is FRIVOLOUS and you are ABUSING THE COURTS because THE IDEA OF SYSTEMIC FRAUD AND LAW GRADUATES GOING INTO UNSUSTAINABLE DEBT IS A JOKE.

Kids, you realize how many years of propaganda have been spent getting assholes like this to consider your view laughable? You're charging a fortress with pea-shooters and slingshots, because guys like this could read Tamanaha and Campos and Nando and LST and they will never, ever, ever, ever, ever believe that a Noble and Prestigious School of Law could ever be a valid fraud defendant. You're all just feckless maggots whining about ordinary life, so get off your ass and get one of them jobs.

So here's to Michael C. Sullivan, one of California's premier fraud defense attorneys, and Tom Scott, citizen fighting against the frivolousness of suing lying liars. You guys are helping keep America, and more importantly, her law schools, strong. They're the victims here, of fraudulent advertising and abusive litigation.

Enjoy the weekend everybody. Have a beer, file your taxes, and make sure that if you see any law graduates, kick 'em in the balls (or female equivalent - I'm still not sure what exactly that is, and plan to review the internet for details) for being so damned ironic and frivolous.