For our first good news item today, the ABA won't face disciplinary action that could have jeopardized its ability to Always Be Accreditin':
In a letter sent to Barry Currier, managing director of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Emma Vadehra, the department’s chief of staff, wrote that she was accepting the recommendation of department staff to allow the ABA to continue accrediting new law schools rather than the recommendation for a one-year suspension made by the National Advisory Council on Institutional Quality and Integrity.That's another win for Barry Currier, who's like the Michael Phelps of defending...whatever it is the ABA has been doing for the last several years. Enjoy your Friday evening, sir. You are a hero and the Tsar and/or party leaders [check newspaper to learn who is running things] praise your services. Enjoy the cruise.
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL! ACT NOW AND YOU GET THE REPLACEMENT VOMIT-MOP SET FOR FREE! NO LONGER FEAR INVITING SEVENTEEN YEAR OLDS TO THE KEGGER, SENATOR!
Not only do Friday afternoons bring Obama vetoing 9/11 legislation, police shooting vids, and dumps of whatever other crap someone hopes to go unseen, but mixed in the pile is Indiana Tech news.
You might have heard some idiots barking about Indiana Tech's purported 8% bar passage rate for having a purported one (1) student pass the Indiana bar examination out of twelve (12) (which is actually an 8.333% pass rate, you nerds).
Well guess what, math geniuses, you're full of shit. Indiana Tech is on the verge of raising that number to 50%.
Five graduates of Indiana Tech Law School have filed appeals with the Indiana Board of Law Examiners to have their bar exams reviewed, according to the law school’s dean Charles Cercone.That's some fine zealous advocacy, Chuck!
...
Cercone was angry about the attention the law school has received since the results were publicized Sept. 12. He said the graduates have been put under a level of scrutiny that graduates of other Indiana law schools have not had to face.
“I understand it’s your job and the media’s job to make law schools look bad, but you overlooked in your zeal to make us look bad that you hurt young men and women trying to take the bar,” Cercone said. “Now these people will be branded for the rest of their careers.”
Personally, I like the idea of branding Indiana Tech graduates. Literally. On the fucking forehead like Charlie Manson. With a degree so innovative and refreshing, so inspiring, so improving of its recipients core competencies regardless of what some stupid, inane, slack-jawed, totally objective and thoroughly scientifically tested "bar examination" says, we should be identifying these people. Marking them with a brand of quality. We can't leave such things to the chance of a resume being read.
But this isn't empty zealous advocacy. No, watch the law school alchemy of golden institutions being made slightly more golden through the thought that only comes with years of seasoned practice, that merger of the insight of Oliver Wendell Holmes with the craft of a Machiavellian fox. By God, beebop a luah, you got a functioning law school where every fucking graduate passes the bar exam!
Cercone, speaking publically [sic] for the first time since the bar exam results were announced, said he is confident the law school will turn the results around. The school is offering a “very expensive re-taker program” to the graduates free of charge and is offering other bar prep and doctrinal courses to the graduates and the current third-year students.Listen, kids, this bar examination company has sold bar examination quick-passes to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook, and by gum, it put them in the US News Rankings!
“If they do what we tell them to do, they’ll pass,” Cercone said.
It's not like Indiana Tech has ever been mistaken about anything.
If only more students just did what law schools say, there'd be a lot more million dollar dreams that only end when the cruel touch of jealous Death's scythe hits sometime during the second hour of the yacht orgy just off the coast of Corsica, with the lingering taste of the Swiss chocolate fountain's avalanche and the warmth of 20-year-old breasts and/or ...manparts?... fitting ends to a life well lived and a justice well-served...
One out of twelve is not 8.333%; it's 8%, or even 10%. The quotient can be given to only one significant digit.
ReplyDelete"Retired Indiana Chief Justice Randall Shepard ... pointed out the 12 graduates who took the bar was a very small sample"—no, it isn't; it's a very large sample, representing more than half of the pool of graduates.
Crybaby Cercone accuses the media of trying to make his toilet law skule look bad. Actually, the people of Indiana Tech do that far better than outsiders ever could. And we're responsible for the stigma associated with failing the bar? Ridiculous. Let them take responsibility for their own failure. The only thing that brands them as idiots is the name Indiana Tech on their résumés.
You're a lawyer, the fuck you know about pre-alegbra?
DeletePeople like Cercone only like the media when the media is fair and balanced, which means that the media simply serves as an uncritical mouthpiece to affirmatively aid the private aims of those within entrenched institutions. If no one were reporting that only 1 grad in 12 passed the bar, the public would remain ignorant and assume (correctly, obviously) that Indiana Tech is a first-rate law school.
Had, say, 11 of the 12 graduates passed the exam, Indiana Tech would have trumpeted that outcome as proof of its excellence. When only one of the 12 passes the exam, however, the sample is too small to mean anything, and the fact must be kept out of the media.
Delete“If they do what we tell them to do, they’ll pass,” Cercone said.
ReplyDeleteSounds pretty ominous...and using IT math, if 12 take the bar, one passes, and the other 11 who didn't pass disappear, IT would have a 100% pass rate. After all, only one actual applicant would still have an actual active application pending. So the calculations could get revised during the next few weeks.
Answer enough of the questions correctly. If you do this, you'll pass.
DeleteYou're welcome.
It's sheer genius to argue that there wasn't a representative sample (although there most certainly was since the majority of the class took the bar)without revealing the reason why more ITLS students didn't take the bar. Fortunately we know the reason. In an interview with Above the Law, the only student to pass the bar, said that:
ReplyDelete"The class was shocked that only one student passed the bar. However, we knew going into it that our percentage might be rough based on multiple students not being allowed to take the bar due to character and fitness issues and others choosing not to take it this time around."
So, if you admit a significant percentage of students who can't take the bar due to character and fitness reasons, then the majority of your graduates fail, can you claim that the number taking the bar wasn't a representative sample? Or do the folks who aren't allowed to take the bar because of character and fitness issues count in that they actually failed the first part of the bar exam, which is qualifying to take the bar exam? I think we need LSTC's opinion on this representative sample issue.
Thanks for pointing that out. It's interesting that "multiple" graduates—in a pool of 21—were excluded because of character and fitness. Why didn't Indiana Tech's admissions office screen these people out? They've now spent three years of their lives and a huge amount of money (probably borrowed at high interest, with no chance of discharge in bankruptcy) only to find themselves ineligible for the bar. Maybe some of them got into trouble only after being admitted. Still, shouldn't Indiana Tech have advised them that they might not be eligible to become lawyers?
DeleteI would count as failures only those who took the exam, not those who were disqualified. For all that we know, some of those who were disqualified would never have registered for the exam.
Anyway, there are now three big questions:
1) Why did so few of Indiana Tech's graduates pass the exam?
2) Why were "multiple" graduates disqualified on the grounds of character and fitness?
3) What is the ABA going to do?
If the ABA doesn't revoke Indiana Tech's provisional accreditation for the 8% pass rate and admitting a significant number of students who can't take the bar due to C&F issues, then the ABA will never (ever ever) take any meaningful action whatsoever against any law school. If the ABA does not revoke Indiana Tech's accreditation, then it will be understood that law schools can engage in whatever recruitment practices they deem to be desirable in order to fill the seats. For example, a future class of 20 at a lower ranked law school may include three students who had above 150 LSATs and 17 convicted felons. Assuming the three students pass the bar the school can then report a 100% pass rate as the convicted felons will (likely) not be able to take the bar due to C&F issues.
Delete12:42 is spot on the money!
ReplyDeleteMr. Ledger noted that multiple students - out of only 20 or 21 graduates - were not allowed to take the bar exam due to C&F issues. That's how desperate these true cesspits are, people. Hell, they would admit kids with Down syndrome, if they managed to get a college degree of some sort.
Why all this Indiana hate? Indiana is a thriving center of commerce, industry and culture. Drove through there recently and purchased 87 unleaded fuel and an Indy 500 lottery ticket at a Shell station off of I-69. Won $3.00. Used my winnings to purchase a banana. (Indiana has a thriving international food market). Indiana has a growing economy as well. Folks are moving up to Saturns, Pontiacs, and Mercurys. Entrepenaurs and venture capitalists are opening Vape shops state wide. Leisure and casino gaming in Indiana is at all time high. If you want a State that makes it, make it Indiana.
ReplyDelete