The Nefarious Bar Exam Conspiracy Continues

From Bloomberg:

Performance on the bar exam has continued to slip, early results show.

The average score on the multiple-choice portion of the July test fell 1.6 points from the previous year, reaching its lowest level since 1988, according to data provided to Bloomberg by the National Conference of Bar Examiners.

And so it continues that our current law graduates - who are all clearly intelligent and hard-working - are not doing as well on the bar examination.

It's incredibly easy to continue blaming this on the student quality. Indeed, such a conclusion would be warranted by every existing piece of evidence such that it could probably withstand the scrutiny of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And sure enough, Erica Moser, being all rational and shit, is quick to play that card:

"It was not unexpected," says Erica Moeser, the president of the NCBE, which creates the multiple choice part of the test. "We are in a period where we can expect to see some decline, until the market for going to law school improves."

One explanation of science-based thinking is coming up with a theory based on past observations and then seeing a predictable outcome result. Moser, whose office employs real psychometricians, is likely approaching the situation with that mindset.

But that's pernicious bullshit. Sure, you can have your simpleton scientific cause-and-effect explanations that make so much sense I can't believe I'm parodying the inevitable boo-hoo response that will come from the legal academy.

As lawyers, we know better. We know that there are things called conspiracies and if this isn't a giant big conspiracy designed to deprive worthy lawyers of their licenses, I'll eat my hat while having relations with a Victoria's Secret model.

Sure, law schools could be admitting less-able students.

But I'd personally rather believe that the NCBE has developed a multiyear conspiracy to deprive Americans access to justice in order to milk additional bar examination fees. I demand a full-scale audit of the last twenty administrators of the MBE so I can have a paid expert denounce the process.  Our law students are working too hard to have to wait an additional six months to practice due to our failure to educate them to the extent desired by the NCBE's conspirators.

But more importantly, we need to realize that the evil, greedy conspirators, working for a private entity with no transparency, are not likely to change. We're stuck with these assholes serving as the douchebag doormen at the premium club who never lets you in. Knowing that reality, what can we possibly do to exploit students further while passing it off as a necessary change for their own good in the face of troubling circumstances?

I say bar exam coursework for eight weeks just isn't enough.

We need to add a fourth year of law school.

I know, I know - that means we'll have to hire more faculty and that law schools will be bigger. But clearly, three years isn't enough to properly teach and train the current crop of law students. Three years is barely sufficient.

Adding a fourth year of law school that is nothing but bar examination preparation just might be what is needed to get these 148 LSATs over the top. It will be a setback for law schools to try and service an extra, expensive year of law school, but it will no doubt be worth it to better serve law students when we have such conniving bad faith scientists running the nation's bar exam programs.

You gotta do what ya gotta do.

If It's Broke, Leave It As-Is

As you may recall, recently I featured Milan Markovic and Jeremy Paul's letters to the New York Times in response to Steven Harper's recent Op-Ed. Well, grab some popcorn, 'cause this motherfucker escalated to the internet intermediate appellate level...

Harper responded with a lengthy blog post on September 9. As any good BigLaw litigator would do, he misdirected the matter at hand to an irrelevant rhetorical question that guarantees his side's victory:

Would Professor Markovic and Dean Paul — among many others who similarly ignore the crisis in legal education — counsel their own children to attend a marginal law school that, upon graduation, assured them of six-figure debt but offered only dismal JD-required employment prospects?

Well, the answer is, of course, "No!" But it's not for the reason Harper wants you to believe. See, Professors like Markovic and Paul are such prodigious intellects that any offspring of theirs would truly be a remarkable genius and score a 187+ (with bonus points) on the LSAT. At that level of accomplishment, those students are looking at getting full rides to law schools like Princeton and Johns Hopkins. The idea of the marginal law school or six figure debt simply doesn't exist for them. That said, if there was some sort of selective nuclear holocaust and somehow one hundred law schools ceased to exist, then surely they might countenance a Northeastern or Texas A&M.

Currently, those "other" law schools - the ones employing Markovic and Paul - don't exist to educate the offspring of the wine tasting gentry. They exist to give an education to those 150 LSATs of modest means striving for the slightly-upper-middle-class.

Markovic, of course, knows better than to fall for the litigator's cheap trick. At TaxProf, he responded to Harper and artfully dodged the question entirely:

Even the most strident law school critics acknowledge that 2018 graduates will be in a much better position because of the steep decline in law school enrollment.
...
Harper’s response does reveal two things, however: His disregard for employment opportunities outside of BigLaw and willingness to conduct a grand national experiment in student loan reform that will likely leave law students more indebted while transferring profits from the treasury to private lenders. 

Markovic's response is enlightening. For one, the man is so amazing he not only can see the employment landscape three years from now, but he can also read the minds of "the most strident law school critics."

You might think, for example, that someone who writes a satirical blog to legal education might be among the "most strident law school critics" and you might presume that such a person would say "fuck no, I would never say or acknowledge that!" But Markovic will gladly play with straw men. Likewise, he adds that Harper "disregards" jobs that Harper expressly includes in his analysis. Surely, Markovic's telekinetic abilities show the sort of keen insight one receives with a T-14 + BigLaw career path...not that such a path matters because Texas A&M grads are going to rock it even if they're practicing law in a strip club bathroom.

But my favorite response is Markovic's claim that student loan reform would be a "grand national experiment." Sure, we used to rely on private student lending. Sure, the government-backed student lending system is fraught with major problems that benefit no one except higher education institutions. Sure, this is an acknowledged crisis on a national scale that only exists because some hippies decided to embark on an even more dangerous grand national experiment a few decades back.

But do we really want to try a "grand national experiment" to solve it?

I say if it's broke, leave it as it is and see if the problem corrects itself on its own. Now that legal academics know that there is a problem with law school financing - I mean, ,they commissioned multiple TASK FORCES for fuck's sake - surely we'll see some meaningful reform by private actors.

And let's not forget the numerous national crises that easily solved themselves without anyone doing anything. What makes Harper's suggestion so utterly reckless is that, in this case, the crisis was exacerbated greatly by governmental intervention. Now, as a solution they want the government to withdraw?

Whoa, Dr. Moreau, let's slow down. The American educational landscape isn't your personal playground sandbox for building phallic towers and bucket-shaped fortifications. It's the personal playground sandbox where professors can educate tomorrow's leaders at ridiculous, predatory prices.

A Playbook for Scoundrelling from California's Less-Accredited Schools

In an astute comment on the last post, PresTTTige (likely not a real name) noted that the unmet legal needs line of argumentation is the last refuge of scoundrel law school administrators, alluding to a quip by Samuel Johnson, a quirky man who spent nine years working on a dictionary only to have its legacy bested by the hipster fascists at Oxford and Mr. Merriam-Webster.

Unfortunately, PresTTTige's comment is slightly off the mark.  Law deans are so excellent, with such a wide battlefield of scoundrelling, that they get multiple last refuges. It's not a single last refuge, in fact, so much as a Wolf's Lair-like compound of related refuges from which the generalissimos can move deftly back and forth.

Consider this article about Southern California Institute of Law's ongoing battle with accreditation authorities over bar passage rules.

We, of course, have the classic unmet legal needs approach (not only does one need to move to Nebraska, one should maybe stop trying to work solely for Samsung, Boeing, and JP Morgan):

"We're in the business of producing qualified, competent mechanics who can day in and day out assess the basic needs of clients and find a cost-effective way to solve their problems, not work for the rare, sophisticated corporate client," said Mitchel Winick, the president and dean of Monterey College of Law, which also has a campus in San Luis Obispo. [How Cool[eyish]]

But aside from this astounding observation, we have its cousin, the "won't-someone-think-of-the-children loan mules students" approach, paired nicely with the "save the poor immigrants," "we teach our students good even though there's no objective evidence", and "let's snidely compare ourselves to one of the most successful capitalist enterprises in human history like it's a good point" approaches:

"It is our responsibility to help those who are new arrivals, who are new immigrants, who come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds," [SCIL Dean] Pulle said. "Is the only way these students are going to pass is to give them a McDonald's education or is it to challenge them to think for themselves?"

And then, for the non-ABA school, there's the "we're actually better than used car salesmen" approach:

"[The cost of the education] is doable for a lot people and it won't depreciate as soon as you walk off the lot," he said. "They will still have to push [financially], but it is what it is."

And finally - my personal favorite - the "inalienable right to fail and not be haunted" approach:

"As individuals, we have the right to pursue our dreams. Even if we cannot always attain them, there is much to be gained from trying, including the realization that something we had long hoped for is perhaps beyond our reach," the lawsuit said. "To never have tried may haunt a person for the rest of their life."

Put that in your Constitution and smoke it, 9th Circuit.

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.

You Are About To Witness The Power Of Urban Collaboration

Despite having a campus that looks something like a modern-day Ministry of Truth (which is ironically not ironic), Florida Coastal is toying with the idea of moving to downtown Jacksonville.

But like a woman going to the bathroom in a party of six, she's not going alone.

[T]he law school is looking for partners who want to share space in its campus just off Baymeadows Road.

“Other law firms [ed - other?], legal interest groups or other entities with which we might share a synergy,” Dennis Stone, president of Florida Coastal School of Law, said in a phone interview with the Business Journal.

The idea would be for those groups or businesses to move with FCSL when it secures a location within the urban core, establishing what school officials are calling the “FCSL Downtown Collaborative.”

For America's Best Laws Schools, it isn't enough to build a factory making lemming sausage to feed a world starving for loads of protein-heavy justice. Oh, no. You need interdisciplinary partnerships, synergies, institutes, collaborative shopping malls, shared meal plans, and diversified zoo exhibits. The modish law school must present more than a straightforward educational mission: it must be a postgraduate supergroup, a union of unique insights like the Bloomsbury Group or the Wu-Tang Clan.

Being an independent law school, Coastal has to seek partnerships outside the traditional academic sphere. And its imagination is running on full synergy mode:

Scott DeVito, FCSL dean of students, said, “Ideal partners for this unique collaboration include legal, educational or perhaps a technology-based business looking to eventually relocate Downtown.”

When he says "educational...business," I can't help but think of preschools, charter schools, and private colleges. What a blissful synergy that could be, one-stop shopping for the legal prodigy!

So, what do you say, Jacksonville businesses doing something somewhat related to law or education or abusing the ever-living fuck out of well-intentioned federal programs or exploiting the human virtue of optimism in our young adults?

Can you feel the pulsing orgasmic synergy of sharing a space with an august institution like FCLS and then moving at the same undetermined future time to the downtown area?

I can, and it sounds like a deal that's simply too goo to be true.

A Call to Expand PSLF

PSLF (pronounced something like "Piss Life'") is in danger of getting hacked by the nickel-and-dimers on Capitol Hill, who hate law schools so much that they've built a structural framework for immune monopolistic profiteering that requires just a little too much effort for most law deans' liking.

Not only should we keep PSLF, which allows people who win the lottery of nabbing highly-competitive positions the added benefit of early loan forgiveness, or something like that (I'm far more interested in the front end than what comes out the back, if you get my drift.), we should expand it to anyone who works outside the largest, richest firms.

Let's look at the reasons:

1. We know there's a bimodal salary curve. Even though there are plenty of opportunities on the right-hand side of the curve, attorneys are still choosing to work on the left side of the curve. They may not be serving the US government, but in serving smaller private interests, they're doing extremely important work. Because, you know, keeping immigrants here and mothers getting child support and small slumlords collecting arrears is de facto public service. Why should they be treated differently than their peers at the public defender's office?

2. For even those law graduates who choose to work outside of the legal sector in competitive JD-advantage and "Other", their work is doing valuable public service, which we can know because we imagine that they're doing just as good as the people who land law jobs.

3. Have you noticed a steep decline in sound logical reasoning on these law school, particularly financing issues?  Let me explain this one:  See, the more suckers we can put on PSLF, the more credible we can sound when we claim it's a viable loan repayment option. Because otherwise, you'd have to be braindead not to get a job with that massive benefit if you had any kind of choice, which most people do not.  And really, it doesn't seem fair to add a massive benefit to jobs that would be super-competitive even in the absence of said benefit. So, fuck, let's just give the benefit to everyone who could possibly need it. Because this entire law school thing is all about obfuscating the sticker price. With discounts and IBR and PSLF and funny pages accounting, we can charge the little bastards $500k, tell them they'll only pay like $10k a year over ten years and then - BAM - everyone's happy.

4. Meanwhile, the public benefits. Here's what'll happen: once we expand PSLF to anyone choosing to make a modest income to help the bottom 99%, maybe some of those super-smart hotshot big firm lawyers will follow suit. Better yet, maybe the largest law firms will lower their salary rates to 50k a year as they realize top talent is no longer going for their top salaries but are more interested in getting a quick-ish discharge for their 500k debts. It's incredibly convoluted and stupid, but god damn it, this is America, and we need to find a foolproof way to let the high rise people drink from the top shelf while the underground dwellers suck mule urine from the shag carpet stalagmites that hang from the ceiling of the moldy work caves. Load the backs of the knaves with a ton of rocks, take some pebbles away, and then act like you've given them an amazing benefit for their feel-good make-work public service. Act offended when they mention the rocks. Counter with some story about the time you carted a sandwich on the Staten Island Ferry. Complain about freeway and prison being built near favorite golf course. Suggest that law grads hang a shingle with no knowledge or move to rustic South Dakota. Justice justice justice. Suck the teat of government until the milk runs dry, then accuse it of being a whore. Soil, wash, rinse, repeat.

Another Market Crash = Great Time for Law School!

As I'm writing this blog post, the news wire is reporting that Chinese stocks have dropped another 5% on whatever excuse of a market they have over there. For those of you who aren't educated enough to know such things, Wall Street had a minicrash on Monday.

You might think, "well, shit, not this again," but wait! Remember what happened the last time we had an unprecedented drop in global equities?  That's right, kids, law school applications shot way up!

Why?

Because smart applicants know that when the stock market drops, the stock of law school rises dramatically. For all of you who think that the law school bubble is passe, I laugh at your skepticism. HA! The more the market tanks, the more you're going to see the next law school bubble blow up.

And you know who's going to profit most?  People who get in on this gravy train NOW!

Remember, folks, if the gravy train ever stops in your neighborhood, grab a ladle and ride that fucker to your biscuit's content.

 

Snoop Versatile and the Case of the Bar Exam Blues

It was a lazy Thursday when I got the call from Ruby to meet. These things never went well on my end. She was a crazy dame, and I didn't know what to expect when I walked into Doug's on 62nd Street and put my hat on the rack and my eyes on hers. Made-up and juiced-up like it was two am instead of two in the afternoon, she couldn't contain her smile.

"Oh, Snoop," she beamed, "I've decided I'm going to law school."
"And I'm going pitch for the Yankees tomorrow night."
"I'm serious, Snoop!"

Told you the bitch was crazy. I hadn't even gotten my coffee yet and she was already laying the wackjob on thick. And sure enough, she had some legwork for me, bought with batting eyelashes and a low-cut shirt. Fuck me...

"I've heard a lot of stories about the bar exam getting tougher or law students getting dumber. Would you mind looking into it?"

Let's face it: I was done when I got on the subway to see her. It would be a challenging mystery requiring all my keen skills of hard-nosed investigation. The type of thing a law degree would surely aid, you know. I stopped by the office and had Petunia pull some files on suspects while I grabbed my six-shooter and dogeared copy of Black's. These thugs liked to use the jargon, after all.

My first stop was to see Nicky. He was dressed up in a "pinstriped charcoal suit and purple tie." I had to wait for the customers to clear out of the deli, but once they did he cold-cocked me with the bitter truth.

"The height of arrogance," he said.  He resisted even uttering the name of his tormentor directly. "Who is she to say what the standard is? Who is she? The person who is the czarina, who determines more and more every year what Americans have to learn to pass the bar to become licensed lawyers … never took the bar."

A clue. We talked a bit more - it felt like three fucking days I had so many awesome quotes - and at the end he was clear about the ramifications of letting "her" control the bar. "[T]here are too few lawyers being produced."

I called back to Petunia and learned he was talking about Moeser, this hot-shot dame in the numbers racket. Nicky sent me to one of his chums, Ferruolo. He was out back elbow-deep in grease, and he doubled-up what his friend said. "Where’s the accountability? I’m not looking to find more information so I can attack the NCBE. I am looking for more information so I can do my job as a dean."

And Snoop Versatile had to his job as a private eye. It was time to confront this Moeser woman. Conrasting Nicky's pinstripes and purple, she was wearing motherfucking denim. Already this was a bad sign. Then she went on the defensive immediately.

She thought Nicky's argument was like a clay pigeon she kept shooting down. "You can squawk loud and long about what’s happening,” Moeser says, “but you’ve got to look at who your student body is." Her finger landed on a chart showing Nicky'd been letting in steadily lower quality. His profits started getting cut so he started peddling cheaper dope.
"Who are you to say what the standard is?" I asked her.
"Would most people say, ‘Oh, we ought to lower the standards so we can have more pediatricians?’ You’d say, ‘Not with my baby, you can’t."
I tried to probe further about various arguments, but she was quick to scram from such discussions like a rat fleeing a sinking ship. "I am not in a position to spend time analyzing results for which I lack respect."

Bitch. She's got this "science" shit. I got intuition. After she confirmed that she never ever passed a single bar exam, I thought it was all pretty clear and I could close out the file. But I decided to make one more brief stop. I'd heard Pauly knew everything about this racket.

I told Pauly about Nicky's claim that there were not enough lawyers and he started laughing like a mad clown on a bender. "Look, Snoop," he said, "There’s a shortage of lawyers in this country the same way that there’s a shortage of Mercedes-Benzes."

 For me, the fat lady was a-singin'. I had Ruby come to my office to break the news.

"Kiddo, I'm sorry," I said. "I was totally wrong on law school. You're not going to find a better option. Go fly, snowflake."
"You mean it? What about the bar exam? Will I fail?"
I spelled it out for her on my chalkboard. "This Moeser chick's got a pretty sweet racket. She wants people to fail the bar so she can collect on more retakes. She never even passed the bar and she can't answer a question straight."
"But Snoop, aren't those irrelevant issues?"
"Look at you!" I said, "thinkin' like a lawyer and all that shit!"
"But what about Moeser?"
"With kingpins like Nicky on the prowl, won't be long before the gig is up."
"But what about Pauly?"
"Pauly's nuts, babblin' about cars and shit. Look, Sweetheart, I'm the best private eye in the business, and I have to say that the culprit of the bar exam blues is Moeser. Law students ain't gettin' dumber. The test has just gotten way more unfair. It's not like Nicky or Ferruolo would just make this shit up to cover their asses because they're bringing in less capable students to compensate for the law bubble's deflation."
"But what's the evidence?"
"There you go, thinkin' like a lawyer again!" I pinched her on the cheek. "Just go to a school like Brooklyn; you'll do great!"
"Snoop," she said, "you're the best!"

Yes, I am.

The Triumph in Cooley's Decline

Don't buy when others buy.  Buy when they're selling.

I give you Cooley Law School, now proudly associated with Western Michigan, because it takes a special school whose prestige is enhanced by affiliating with a third-tier directional college. A very special school:

More than 3,900 students were enrolled at Cooley Law School in 2010. That was the zenith. It’s been downhill since. Cooley’s enrollment for the 2014-15 academic year was 1,880.

That’s a drop of 52%, according to data from Cooley and the American Bar Association.

Will this precipitous drop mean that Cooley is only the 4th or 5th best law school in America?

Who's to blame?  Why, it's worse-but-higher-ranked schools, of course.

“One of the things that schools will do is they’ll start taking students that they wouldn’t have taken in good times,” [Leduc] said. “(They) reach down further into applicant pool. Well, when they do that they’re taking our students, and we’re adversely affected by that.”

But even top-notch legal experts recognize that Cooley is an excellent option for would-be lawyers.

In accepting students other law schools shun, Leiter said, Cooley does provide opportunities for those who have the will to thrive.

Where there's a will, there's a way. Real lawyers know this, and that's why Cooley has been the stealth choice for those confident in their inner barrister for decades.

So Cooley has suffered a bit because people who are dumb enough to read U.S. News decide to go to places like Capital and Detroit-Mercy.  Screw those people.

Embrace being one of the bold few who bucks the trend and gets a stellar education in a half-empty room. People like Brian Leiter know that if you have the will, Cooley will provide you the opportunity to thrive.

After all, is law school anything more than a 3-year Triumph of the Will?

Lol, Texas Wesleyan Grads

Motion to dismiss for being dumb:

A&M bought Texas Wesleyan, a private institution, for $73.2 million. The university bought the law school's accreditation status all the way back to 1994. But A&M hasn't recognized the students who graduated from the law school during that time as alumni, the lawsuit argues.
...
The alumni status is crucial for the law school graduates because the purchase essentially included Texas Weslayan's status with the American Bar Association, which now lists A&M Law School -- but not Texas Weslayan -- as an accredited school.

Sure, you may argue that when a self-righteous 2nd-rate undergrad school decides that it suddenly wants a 4th-rate law school that it should buy the obligations with the assets.

But look at it this way: In public policy, we want to get prestigious-sounding schools involved in the law school prestige game. Remember when Penn State absorbed Dickinson?  When Michigan State swallowed Detroit College of Law? When UC-Irvine slapped its brand on a new building and instantly became a Tier 1 school?

All wonderful happenings. On the converse, see The Charleston Saga: Part XXIX, The Magistrate Interupteth for an example of what can happen when we are hostile to reasonable takeovers by superior business models.

The last thing we want to do is weigh down future purchasers with obligations relating to the chaff the previous institution spit out. That's like supporting some other man's kids. That shit's for beta suckers. (side note: Hi, Rich! Make sure you tuck in Li'l LSTC tonight!)

Despite having the golden ticket of a Texas Wesleyan JD, these intrepid barristers apparently have never figured out that their individual goals are always to be subordinate to those of prestigious institutions. This is big business, after all, and merger conquistadors don't exactly take the busted copiers and union pension plans with them. Texas A&M isn't going to sully its image by claiming that graduates from 1998 who went to Texas Wesleyan over South Texas are alumni; no, Texas A&M is going to sully its image only with pureblodded graduates who went to Texas A&M over South Texas.

This is remarkably simple stuff. Besides, what are the damages? A Texas Wesleyan diploma is the passport to wherever and by itself carries a large earnings premium whether one practices law or not.

Class action?  More like Ass Action.