Appeal DENIED:
“From its start, this case, and others like it, has been nothing more than a misguided crusade, brought by lawyers who had to search for their clients on social media, to shift blame onto law schools for the difficulty of finding jobs in a recessionary economy,” Don LeDuc, Cooley’s president and dean, said in a statement.
If you were wondering whether Master LeDuc would still try to pin law graduates difficulties on the recession, you really need to go back to Commandment 4 in your Scammer's Bible: No Argument is Ever Discredited.Meanwhile, we have to put up with this whiner:
Shawn Haff, a 39-year-old Grandville resident who was a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said he's disappointed with the outcome.
"I think it's outrageous," he said of the notion that he and other graduates shouldn't have put so much stock in Cooley's employment statistics. "Cooley allegedly takes great pride in ethics. In my opinion, they basically talk about ethics out of one side of their mouth and then basically just skimp by with whatever they can barely legally get by with."
Hear that? It's the violin this guy bought for $50,000 because someone told him it was a "Stradiveerius." Jesus, you got bilked. Grow up, get over it, and learn how to get quoted without using so many prepositions.Grads, the message is clear: you were unreasonable for going to law school while relying on stats whose sole purpose is to trick you into going to law school. Purposefully cheating people isn't fraud when you can show how stupid the marks were. That's American law, you losers. Now get a job and pay your damned loans like good little consumers.
Ladies and Gents, Arkansas dean/prof Stephen Sheppard:
“I reject the premise that American law students are too stupid to know the cost of their degree,” he says....
"The idea that we must have jobs for our students is not only a mistake, it’s a dangerous mistake."
Criticism of legal education has become a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” scaring away prospective law students even though they could find good jobs as attorneys, he says.
I can't bring myself to watch the video for fear that my testicles will explode from the ridiculous orgasm that would ensue. I'm pretty sure Sheppard has made a bid to join the all-in, fully-dressed, balls-to-the-wall post-Matasarians like Larry Mitchell and Steve Diamond.But he does have a good idea in addition to his brass. Self-fulfilling prophecy must be really powerful if it can cut law school enrollment in half when its still a great deal.I'd like to hearby announce that the following are overrated scams that no one should be involved with because you will wind up miserable and broke:-BMWs-gold-plane tickets to Rio-Manhattan real estate-big tit blondes-plastic surgery degrees-the iPhone du jour-lobster-human organs-live pandas-Old Master artworkSeriously, these things will only bring you misery and debt. Sell sell sell.
If you're not familiar with Charleston Law School, you should be. It's the 2nd-best law school in South Carolina, a key state in the crucial areas of golf and confederate nostalgia.Well, Charleston just kicked it up a notch by contracting with InfiLaw, the kick-ass consortium of independent leaders in education such as Phoenix Law School (do NOT confuse with U. of Phoenix), Charlotte Law School, and ScamMadness(c) Champion Florida Coastal, to manage its operations, which some believe is a step towards selling the school.
The Charleston School of Law issued a statement that said the alliance with InfiLaw System gives the school "access to pioneering programs and tools that will help it provide students with excellence in teaching, strong faculty relationships as well as opportunities for public service and community involvement."
Thank God someone is finally offering public service. And these pioneering programs - will that be an LLM in covered wagon crashes, second cousin divorces, and elixir manufacturing contracts, or just a certificate program?For an industry that's dwindling, InfiLaw sure is staking its ground, eh? Maybe y'all should be buying into the system instead of spewing hot garbage at it. Follow the smart money.InfiLaw now has its efficient tentacles in four schools, turning what was a trio into a bona fide faction, not unlike Robin Hood's Merrymen with much less archery and slightly less homosexual innuendo. And the analogy works because students will likely spend a good deal of time learning the law of Robin Hood's time, which has much more application to today's lawyer than any scamblogger gives credit, largely because I say so and have no desire to update my class notes from 1995.They take from the lower middle class and give to the upper middle class. That's American storytelling for ya.In any event, shrewd investors buy when everyone else sells a thing of real value.
Sanders said he didn't know if the school would ultimately be sold but said "to sell a law school is a complicated thing. It could take months or years. It is not like selling a loaf of bread."
Right, if only American law schools had access to legal counsel who could manage the sale or merger of a private business. Gosh, I guess it's self-evident that we need to be pumping out more attorneys, eh?(Also, it's more complicated than selling bread because people actually want to buy bread).
Low student-teacher ratio is good, right? Indiana Tech's will be pretty impressive next year.
The inaugural class is expected to have 30 students, below the school’s original goal of 100.
The learning experience for these thirty will be unassailable. Working that close with expert scholars like Andre Cummings, these students are bound to become a legal force to be reckoned with in northern Indiana.You rascally scambloggers think you're winning. Oh, no, we're just finding new ways to crush you. If Cooley and Georgetown can get ripped for their large classes, won't you be praising I Tech for its intimacy? Probably not, you hypocrites.
Sometimes you just want to slap someone and give them a hug simultaneously.Enter Frank Newton, dean of Texas Tech Law School. First, he states this:
Newton said that while business schools and engineering schools have experienced periodic bubbles over time, that hasn’t been the case for law schools before now.
Sigh. C'mon Frank. We all know that the boom and bust cycle happens in law applications, too. It happened in the 70s, so, like ipso facto no questions, there's no reasons to close up any law schools now, because applications will come rip-roarin' back when the economy fully rebounds.But then, to quote Harry (or was it Lloyd?), he goes and TOTALLY REDEEMS HIMSELF:
“Law students saw this elevator that kept going up, offering near guaranteed jobs paying six digits in good economic times and bad, so they jumped on board,” Newton said. “Suddenly, the elevator isn’t going up as high, graduates cannot find jobs and they cannot repay the $100,000 in student loans.”
I just want to give a shout out to all you '07 Texas Tech grads who are rollin' in six-figure incomes. You guys are all right.If you'll recall the happy, magical elevator, it went something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJeFmtBELEMAnd it's not like Newton lacks understanding for the real results:
Newton and others say the legal marketplace has segmented into two groups.
The first is an ever-shrinking group of elite lawyers and firms working on high-dollar business matters and earning big bucks. The second includes rank-and-file lawyers who are seeing their paying client base opt for cheaper self-help legal forms offered on the Internet and by the courts.
He just remembers fondly all the Texas Tech graduates signing off on oil deals and escorting their supermodels around Lubbock.
Read it and weep, academic lightweights:
Firing untenured faculty is a shortsighted approach to managing an academic budget. It encroaches on an important principle of academic freedom, namely that a tenure decision should be based on the merit of the case, not the budget of the department.
Yeah, all you stupid dunderheads and your "real market economics" are screwing the First Amendment.What is Prof. Fleischer's basis for this? Theory? Empiricism? Nope - personal anecdote.But he gets it right, and oh so right:
Law professors, economists and other academics are often called to testify in front of Congress, and academic research is often used to shape legal policy. Academic views are respected precisely because they are free from economic pressures; academics are not beholden to clients.
Ivory tower obliviousness for the win!But far from being a feckless academic, Fleischer has a real, practical, hard-hitting solution:
According to its Web site, Seton Hall Law School has five centers, seven clinics and five study abroad programs. I doubt all of these programs are profit centers. Perhaps in the age of austerity, the law school will offer fewer opportunities to travel to Zanzibar, take a safari, or study lakeside in Geneva. Better to kill off a few boondoggles than to fire the junior faculty.
Clinical legal education: a boondoggle. Junior faculty who publish fluff are important, people. Their right to publish offensively useless fluff must be protected at all costs. Now pay your tuition and leave us alone to bask in our six-figure prestige. MY CV IS TWENTY PAGES LONG AND PROVES I ADD VALUE TO THE HUMAN RACE.
Yes, kids, McGeorge is down in faculty to match its cozier size:
The Sacramento Bee contacted [spokesperson] Daniels early today after receiving an e-mail tip of a "round of involuntary staff layoffs" at McGeorge this week.
...
Daniels subsequently said in an email that "the number of layoffs was very small and the majority of reductions were voluntary."
"Voluntary" in this context probably means roughly the same as when law graduates "choose" to display the versatility of the degree by working in sanitation engineering and temporary transportation management.In case you were wondering how exactly this went down:
"The school first offered a voluntary severance plan to all staff members. This week it was necessary to lay off several staff members...."
In case you're a staffer at an American law school, tell me put this in plain English: you're as disposable as the graduates you've run through the system, so prep your resumes, because you're going to be the first thrown off the boat. It's been fun, we've made a lot of money together, but it's time to shave to preserve the lucre for who really matters.I'm now eagerly awaiting the whiny scamblog devoted solely towards displaced staffing. But while I'm on topic, let me shame the scambloggers again: this is a great American law school that fuels the lucrative legal services market in Sacramento. Your actions have exacerbated the effects of a once-in-a-lifetime economic crash and now the state capital of our largest state will be starving for attorneys in just a few years.What will California do without attorneys in its state capital?
Oh, Florida Coastal:
Florida Coastal School of Law has laid off about a dozen employees.
In addition to staff cuts, Terry said there is some natural attrition of a limited number of faculty members voluntarily leaving who will not be replaced. But he stressed no faculty members were laid off in the process.
A school's got to have a Code.Granted, law schools don't operate like real companies with all that free market piffle, but it's hard to imagine another industry keeping every single person who performs as little functional work as the typical law professor while laying off employees who, for the most part, likely keep the place running on a day-to-day basis.But we have the First Amendment, which says the government cannot infringe the citizen's right to free speech, which, if you're self-interested enough to torture the hell out of it, means a private, for-profit law school should shitcan all the underlings who pay bills and mail stuff before laying a finger on a six-figure professor who teaches international commerce to people who will never leave northern Florida.Which is how it should be. Law schools are well-prepared to function without any support staff. Much like the Swiss Family Robinson, they'll make it work with what they have and use their natural talents and team-building personalities. The tax professors can no doubt handle the books. The former prosecutors can sell "disaster if you don't convict...yourself to Coastal" in admissions. Whoever teaches property and environmental law can surely manage the building. You've got plenty of former corporate lawyers who can do the mindless administrative tasks. And what the hell, let's be racist and say the international law faculty surely has some cooks and cleaners in the bunch. Why, what a happy little law school I've just built that will somehow function on 10-hour workweeks.Can you imagine the security staff teaching post-feminist legal philosophy? I didn't think so.Oh, and speaking of the Code, Always Be Shillin' ("ABS"):
Meanwhile, despite the law school’s challenges, the institution remains confident students will get jobs in the legal field.
Confidence: the best tool a player has. Oh, and janitor at a bail bondsmen's office is a "job[] in the legal field," so if you turn that down to work at Arby's, that's on you, bro.
If you haven't seen the "Dude, Richmond" ad, you need to check it out right now. This is, perhaps, the greatest piece of advertising this side of Where's the Beef?. Using a smartphone and mock Gen Y-speak, they've found an ideal way to communicate Richmond's kick-ass, unbelievable numbers in an entirely believable format. I mean, no one believes that the hucksters in the Brooks Brothers suits actually believe what they're saying. But these doofuses? They actually believe this shit like front-row singers at a hand-clapping gospel revival.But don't take my word for it. Look at the WSJ:
Yes, the conversation is preposterous, like an alien imitating shorthand text slang. But in a catchy way, it sells the school with compelling data points. Applicants are up. It’s getting more selective. And its graduates are finding jobs. That may be a silly way to make the point, but Richmond drives it home. In that sense, all the attention it’s getting is a good thing.
Right! Everyone's talking about how ridiculous the advertisement is, they're completely glossing over the fact that the statistics are as reliable as a Daewoo.See, back in the good ol' days of 2007, law schools could be straight with their bullshit. 97% employed? Six-figure cushy jobs? Our grads have 'em! Now, you have to be more clever with your bullshit. You have to frame it in contexts and come up with ridiculous delivery devices to get the bogusness through to the hapless 0Ls who think they can do better than their bartending gig.So, yeah, go ahead and talk about how stupid the ad is. That's the point, you. See you at Richmond!
You can read the shocking tell-all from...wait for it... Scamblogger David Lat at Above the Law.
Last week, we heard reports of [Seton Hall] basically axing its entire junior faculty.
I don't feel like quoting much more of the article, since, as a good elitist counter-revolutionary journalist, Lat wrote it with the force of a bubble bath. But I do have to give him major props for reaching out to our mentor, inspiration, and muse, the one, the only, the inimitable, Patrick Hobbs. Soundbite time!
Our first responsibility is to our students, past, present and future, to admit only those we believe can be successful attorneys, to provide them a first-rate education, and to manage our enrollment to ensure them the best opportunity to secure employment in the profession. We continue to focus on outcomes for our students, and Above The Law’s recent ranking of law schools affirms the success of these efforts.
When you stop laughing and/or crying in awe, remember that I TOLD YOU SO. The more rankings that the "critics" float out there, the more avenues for slickmeisters to claim superiority in one way or another. Hobbs 9184, Scambloggers 18.At least those junior faculty members who might get kicked to the curb have the practical skills associated with a law professorship necessary to start and thrive in one's own practice.
