When the Dollar Sign Flashes in the Night Sky...

You know how Batman has that giant light that flashes in the night when he's needed? You know, the one that must cost a fortune to power and trigger warnings about someone growing weed on the rooftop from the electric company?

Law professors have the same thing. Every time a malcontent airs nonsense in a too-public forum, the light flashes, and away they scurry to their keyboards like masked avengers in the night - the types of heroes Gotham deserves AND the one's Gotham's going to get come hell or high water...with tenure.

Steven Harper, a member of the rogues gallery, the law school's version of The Riddler, wrote an editorial to the New York Times about the typical blah blah blah blah blah...

The bat signal goes up...

And our heroes drive the SocraticMobile straight into harm's way. They're armed and ready with the fully utility belt of sophisticated rhetorical weaponry, where false equivalencies are like grappling hooks and red herrings are like smoke bombs.

First up, we have Texas A&M Professor Milan Markovic. He throws the JD Advantage:

Moreover, there are some desirable jobs that law school graduates perform that do not require a law degree.

The antitrust-when-it's-convenient argument:

[C]ollective action to limit enrollment further would likely run afoul of federal antitrust laws.

The past results guaranteeing future results investment theory:

[G]raduate school loans — and particularly those allocated to law students and medical students — have historically been very profitable.

With a finishing move advocating transparency as a "constraint" on law school enrollment*:

The American Bar Association’s approach of disseminating information about employment outcomes and requiring certain bar passage rates is likely to be a far more effective constraint on law school enrollment than student loan reform.

*Please ignore that part - it won't be a constraint at all, because when prospective law students see the real statistics about JDs attracting money like flies to a pig farm, they'll be signing up for MPNs so fast by gum the printer won't be able to keep up with the racetrack queue.

Markovic's letter was obviously a WHAM! to the villainy of Harper, but not to be outdone, Northeastern's Dean and Professor Jeremy Paul sent in his own SMASH!

What, you might ask, could Markovic possibly have overlooked that all but ends the arguments of "restrictionists" and makes NYT publication worthy?  He forgot the motherfucking poor people who need lawyers!

 Steven J. Harper unfairly assesses the number of American law students based on employment statistics rather than on the more salient fact that so many Americans cannot afford legal services. 

And the coup de grace:

Perhaps instead of painting with a broad accusatory brush, Mr. Harper should offer his own solutions for expanding legal services to all. That’s the valuable mission of the many law schools he castigates so cavalierly. 

Sometimes, there's so much beauty in the world - I feel like I can't take it, like my heart is just going to cave in.

"The" valuable mission. Not "a" valuable mission.  "The."

It's truly admirable - most people, when their business is accused of exploitation in the New York Times, cower. Not our brave steelnutted soldiers.

Really, the world would be a far more efficient capitalist mojito-and-hors d'ouerves paradise if we could somehow get this dauntless law professor mindset into those running the globe's sweatshops and farmer her labor-intensive crops.

"What, you think we breed too many enslaved child laborers when we let half of them starve? Well, shit, dummy, we're trying to expand child labor serves to all, particularly the many Americans who cannot afford good child labor." 

Have a happy Labor Day, everyone...except the children in my factory; they're working overtime. Anything less would be an antitrust violation.