Embrace the Surge of JD and LLM Entrants

It's the holiday season, time of joy and gifts and religious posturing.  In that festive spirit, I bring you the Good News:

New student enrollment at the nation’s law schools increased 3 percent this fall, according to figures released by the American Bar Association Friday.
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More than half of schools—122—reported an increase in the size of their first-year class, while 81 schools told the ABA that their 1L class is smaller than in 2017.

It’s not just J.D. programs that gained in popularity this year. Enrollment in non-J.D. programs, which includes LL.M. and masters programs, grew more than eight percent from 2017.

LLM programs grew eight percent?  It's like these kids haven't read a damn thing that's been typed by the petulant "realists" over the last decade.  Eight percent!  Hot damn, Mary Sue, there is a Santa Claus, and he's got a nice list full of law deans, apparently.

The three percent JD boost is like having something good happen in your morning:  a good night's sleep, a great cup of coffee, a notably good commute.  An EIGHT PERCENT LLM boost is like getting that while high on free cocaine.

I mean...

With all that's out there, how are law schools still winning?  Isn't this enough to cause a "truther" to spiral into serious crisis and depression?  What would law schools have to do to lose?  Could Robert Mueller bring them down?  Were the few schools that closed basically making the herd faster through their sluggish departure, suggesting that their crapness was actually a stealth benefit?

All I know is, I'm going to enjoy the hell out of going to work tomorrow.
Seriously, eight percent LLM increase?!  Am I off-base?  That's nuttier than turtle pie.  And if it's all importing foreign kids while the JD enrollment is boosted by sudden concerns over Donald Trump, that's even better.  As Clarence Darrow once said, paraphrased, the law is a never-ending pleasant surprise.

Thanks for this one, Santa and/or Jesus.  

Congratulations, Manor College

Have you heard of Manor College?  Just north of Philadelphia, it's poised to be one of the fastest-rising undergraduate schools in America.  Why? Well, even though Manor College typically is only a two-year school, it's now offering a three-and-three fast-track admissions program with Widener, Delaware's highest ranked law school.  This sort of program isn't new, per se, but when it happens - particularly with a glorified community college - it's a truly amazing sight.

Guaranteed law school admission three years from now.  All you have to do is earn a 3.0+ GPA each of six undergraduate semesters, do the law school admissions paperwork and score higher than Widener's incoming class on the LSAT (which is basically doing the law school admissions paperwork).

This article also gives us one of the best zingers in crap regional journalism memory:

The program is intended to save students time and expense allowing for the completion of both degrees in six years instead of seven.

The program is intended to push sheep into a meat grinder and make snow angels out of the resulting blanket of wool. 

What I love the most is the implied persistence on Widener's part to gain an additional handful of profit generation toys.  Again, Manor College traditionally is a two-year school after which students transfer.  How many schools have they called? sat down with? sent a mailer?  Did they call Penn?  Haverford?  Swarthmore?  Weren't any of those schools interested in getting their students to professional unfulfillment more quickly?

As if one didn't need enough motivation to enroll in a school with a median LSAT of 148, the school offers a partial scholarship to students in this three-and-three program, which reduces the sticker tuition cost for Widener Law from a fist in the ass to four heavily knuckled fingers. From hearsay, I believe a thumb in the ass at a brothel would easily cost more than $20,000 if monetized year-round, so this is a considerable bargain.

So congratulations, Manor College.  Your students now have the immeasurable benefit of potentially not suffering through arguably the best year of undergrad with easy admission to a school that's desperate for anyone who can recite the alphabet half in the bag.  Anyone who buys such an agreement is surely an exemplary candidate for Widener and Delaware bar admission.

Law School "Compliance" Update: A Kiss for Lincoln Memorial and a Gentle Spanking for Vermont

True love is a delicate balance, a consensual carrot and stick, if you will.  Pure adoration is not love - no, that's simply being a slavish sycophant. No better than a computer program, really.  The art of love requires the occasional stick served with those sweet carrots. Metaphorically, of course; this blog only condones intangible relationship abuse, the kind that can't be fully articulated to meddling authorities.

For example, law schools excel at telling students just how amazing and wonderful they are, how they'll change the world, free jailed polar bears, and ghost write important opinions for important judges deciding important things.  At the same time, law schools smack those supplicant bitches with criminally excessive tuition bills.  Far from deceptive fraud, that's love - a form of love older than the Bill of Rights, older than our political parties, older than our school system.

And so it goes with the regulation of law schools.

Here's the ABA throwing Lincoln Memorial a nice, hot, juicy bone.

Lincoln Memorial University's Duncan School of Law has been found in compliance with accreditation standards set by the American Bar Association, eight months after the school was found "significantly out of compliance."
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[LMU Dean Gary] Wade said LMU was found to be out of compliance in April because of the percentage of students who did not graduate, or the attrition standard, grew above 20 percent. 

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"Lincoln Memorial University has as its core mission providing higher education opportunities to the people of Southern Appalachia, who score lower on standardized testing," Wade said. "We are what I call an opportunity school."

Wade said LMU admits students who may have lower test scores, which contributed to their being out of compliance. Since March, Wade said they "have had to be very discriminating in the admission of our students."

This fine opportunity school had a median LSAT of 148 and a median GPA of 3.08 for the Fall of 2017.  Thankfully, it's on track to be fully accredited.  Just have to keep those students from dropping out or transferring.

Letting your partner get away with the bare minimum of acceptable conduct? That's love, baby, and you know that Lincoln Memorial will pay it forward to their brood of students as long as the ABA permits them and pesky things like ill-advised new building loans don't intrude (what coulda been, Thomas Jefferson, what coulda been).

But of course, sometimes regulators have to scowl and sleep on the couch.  The American Association of University Professors - which, to be clear, is not the glorious ABA - is not exactly happy with Vermont Law School's decision to slash its tenured faculty like erotic knife-play gone awry.

Naughty, Vermont.  Naughty:

“We’re concerned about the way in which the administration and board made a judgment about the financial situation and reduced programs and reduced faculty without consulting the faculty in a meaningful fashion,” [AAUP official Anita] Levy said in a phone interview.
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VLS “failed to consult with the faculty as a whole about its plan for involuntarily restructuring the faculty,” the AAUP said in a statement on its website. “It appears that the ‘restructuring’ process deviated from widely observed standards of academic decision making, including those mandated by the bylaws of the Association of American Law Schools.”

The object lesson here, of course, is that if you want to fuck someone, you have to actually involve them in the decision-making process whether they're interested at first blush or not.  As noted above - and in numerous of this blog's better posts - law schools are adept at the art of exploitative courtship with their students, but when it comes to screwing over the professors, their methods could use a bit of refinement.

That's okay.  Scam is a way of life, but it's also a work in progress.  Next time, put some tenured faculty on the blue-ribbon panel and let them develop the idea of hosting a good ol' fashioned facultycide.

Because that's love, too, and, er, "compliance."  Scam on.