Welcome to SCAM MADNESS! Who's in YOUR bracket?!

Many people have heard of March Madness. As I'm typing this, you're probably wasting your unemployment (you should be hitting the pavement, searching for non-existent jobs, you bum!) watching Michigan State blow out Valparaiso's basketball team. Thankfully, it doesn't end at basketball. Oh no, THE SCAM has its own version of March Madness: SCAM MADNESS!

The Selection Committee here at the Law School Truth Center has been hard at work, which, because we love love love the law, involves drinking mid-range wine and talking about the service at minimalist restaurants with trendy one-word names and one-upping each other about what life-affirming part of western Europe we visited last break (Liege is a new "it" spot, and bow-tie-wearing-prof is going nuts about Barcelona like it's 2006...). 

ANYWAY, the rules are simple. The selection committee chose schools based on who won non-existent mini-tournaments and who made news in the last year for scam-worthy behavior. Each round will take a look at some scamtastic category, and the grand winner hoists the Thomas E. Brennan Award. 

The reigning champions, the University of Illinois, failed to make this year's tournament after losing superstar admissions director Paul Pless to the professional ranks of real estate salesmen. So it's ANYONE'S TOURNAMENT. MAY THE BEST SCAMMERS WIN.

Who you got?!?!

EAST

1 SETON HALL
16 WIDENER

8 VERMONT
9 PACE

4 NORTHEASTERN
13 ROGER WILLIAMS

5 BROOKLYN
12 SUFFOLK

2 RUTGERS-WHATEVER
15 BALTIMORE

7 VILLANOVA
10 TOURO

3 NEW ENGLAND
14 ST. JOHNS

6 PENN STATE
11 WESTERN NEW ENGLAND



SOUTH

1 BARRY
16 NORTH CAROLINA

8 CHARLOTTE
9 ARKANSAS

4 THOMAS COOLEY
13 STETSON

5 TEXAS SOUTHERN
12 JOHN MARSHALL (ATL)

2 AMERICAN U.
15 REGENT

7 TEXAS WESLEYAN
10 FLORIDA COASTAL

3 GEORGE WASHINGTON
14 LIBERTY

6 MISSISSIPPI COLL.
11 AVE MARIA



MIDWEST

1 THOMAS COOLEY
16 DUQUESNE

8 JOHN MARSHALL (CH.)
9 DEPAUL

4 ST. LOUIS
13 WILLIAM MITCHELL

5 VALPARAISO
12 ST. THOMAS (MN)

2 INDIANA TECH
15 DETROIT MERCY

7 CHICAGO-KENT
10 DRAKE

3 CASE WESTERN
14 CREIGHTON

6 TULSA
11 CAPITAL



WEST

1 THOMAS JEFFERSON
16 SOUTHWESTERN

8 HASTINGS
9 PHOENIX

4 SANTA CLARA
13 WILLAMETTE

5 LAVERNE
12 LEWIS AND CLARK

2 DENVER
15 LOYOLA-LOS ANGELES

7 IDAHO
10 WHITTIER

3 MCGEORGE
14 ARIZONA STATE

6 CONORDIA
11 SAN FRANCISCO

Law School: A Buying Opportunity

William Jacobson is a professor at Cornell Law School, which is most likely a much nicer school than any that You, the Prospective Lemming, could enroll. So even though I've never heard of him, he's most likely a genius of the highest order (which, you probably know, is the Leiter Order).

You should also listen to Warren Buffet, who is, with the utmost certainty, richer than you, and no doubt a better investor when playing with million dollar bills, although he never made the wise decision to pick up a law degree (just think, he'd be even RICHER). As Jacobson explains:

“Buy when everyone else is selling.”

From Warren Buffett on down, it’s a time tested approach to investing. It doesn’t mean purchase anything that comes along, or overpay, but it’s a contrarian approach to the madness of markets which tend to drive valuations to extremes for relatively short periods of time.

Yeah, like that time everyone was selling GM stock. I said "whoa! this is CHEVY and BUICK" and bought bought bought. Now the company has rebounded and I am the proud owner of some really cool foresight and a stack of paper. People think I'm quite clever when I pass them out as coasters for drinks.

Oh! Law school! How does this apply? Let the Big Red investing maestro from Ithaca explain:

Buy law school in this downturn with all the caveats applied to investing. Understanding what you are purchasing from a school in terms of job prospects. Do not overpay by going heavily into debt at a school from which you have little realistic prospect of obtaining the employment necessary to handle that debt.

Yeah, buy buy buy!

And if you need any help about understanding your "job prospects" or the "employment necessary to handle that debt," please contact your nearest career services office, who will be MORE than HAPPY to explain to you that you have a 90% chance of making a median $100k salary. Of course, your mileage might vary. You might only make $80k working in legal aid or as a public defender. Or you might make $150k. Either way, your one-way ticket to the upper middle class is at will-call, and you should RUN THERE when you see everyone else RUNNING AWAY.

Shame on you, Illinois!

The Illinois State Bar Association knows all about the scam, as the state houses not one, not two, but NINE law schools for a declining population base.

Yet the ISBA still finds it necessary to release a report stating that the current legal education system causes many "threats" to professionalism.

Well, no shit, Mr. Holmes! No one in this profession has given a shit about professionalism since the Nixon administration. It's all about the cash now. Want it in different grammatical forms? Okay!

Simple past: No one gave a shit.
Past Perfect: No one had given a shit.
Past Cont.: No one was giving a shit.
Past Perfect Cont.: No one had been giving a shit.

Next time, we'll do it in Latin!

And besides, even if the Illinois State Bar is correct in this super-cool report, would you rather listen to the prestigious scholars who run our nation's law schools, or the ramblings of a state with an F- credit rating and a governor's wing in its prison?!

US NEWS RANKINGS! It's the MOST WONDERFUL Time of the YEAR

Oh, be still ol' ticker! It's that magic day for those of us who gut lemmings like fish: US NEWS DAY!

That's right, fellow scammers, the new batch of US News Rankings are out and available for salivating!

Some notables:

-ILLINOIS and VILLANOVA continue to suffer for their legitimate misdeeds, instead of the made-up ones that critics slew at all law schools. Illinois is down to 47th and Villanova is barely in the top 100.

-EMORY continues to be an excellent bargain. At only $46k tuition, you save 9k on tuition fees over Columbia, and get an education that's equally first-tier.

-INDIANA cracked the top-25, proving that there is a place in Indiana for another law school, as not everyone can get into such a prestigious institution.

-The city of Boston has three (3) top 31 law schools (HARVARD, BOSTON U., and BOSTON COLLEGE). Obviously, graduates of those schools are in high demand, but many employers cannot pay the market rate for their services. Thus, it appears to be an excellent time to check out Massachusetts' mid-level options, like SUFFOLK.

-Many of my favorite, private-school big-city law schools ("stealth BigLaw schools") remained strong: American (DC) at 56th, Cardozo at 58th, Seton Hall at 64th, and Case-Western, Chicago-Kent, and Loyola-Los Angeles all as part of a great big 8-way orgy at number 68.

-The Alabama legal market is BOOMING. SAMFORD shot up 29 spots and ALABAMA is the 21st best law school in the country. This means Emory grads no longer have to go to Nebraska - they can just go next door! RRRRRRoll Tide!

-The U. of ST. THOMAS (MN) continues to be a sleeper hit. The other three Minneapolis schools all placed strongly on the list, so you know that the Minnesota legal market is going gangbusters to support four excellent law schools. At St. Thomas, you can get into the clear no. 2 school in Minneapolis for only $1,256/credit hour. That's really not that much. I mean, I won't do the math, but obviously if they're putting it in credit hour form instead of full tuition, it has to be low. Like, if you're hiring someone, do you pay them more if you pay them salary or by the hour? Same concept. St. Thomas is a winner. The only question remains: how will YOU spend the cash you rake in at Dorsey & Whitney?

-California continues to be THE PLACE for young attorneys, placing 13 schools on the top 150. Hurrah for the Golden State! Hurrah!

-Two criticisms must be noted: (1) the list still pales in comparison to Brian Leiter's; and (2) Thomas Cooley is still being unfairly treated due to its size. I await Don "The Godfather" Luduc's newest just criticism with baited breath.

Ellen Pryor, UNT Dallas, Ka-Boom!

We reported recently that south Texas may be getting a new school. Well, the civilized folk in the north already build up a new one at UNT Dallas. Their new associate dean of academic affairs (is an academic affair where a married law professor fucks his students over?) sat down with the Dallas Morning News to discuss how their effort to scam even more lemmings will benefit literally everyone:

[question] In that Journal piece, you were quoted as saying, “The fact that the nationwide numbers are down doesn’t dishearten us from thinking we’ll get really good students and fulfill our mission.” How do you define that mission?

[answer] I'm glad you asked. Our mission has several parts:

First: Widen access to legal education for those who could be superb lawyers but who do not have realistic access to a legal education, given reasons of cost, location and the dominance of the LSAT in admissions and financial aid.

Second: Provide an education that is second to none in developing practice-related competencies...

Third: [] Create opportunity by keeping tuition and debt low...

Fourth: Be a vital partner to the legal profession and the community through ongoing study of and dialogue about law and the profession.

Yeah, you blockhead critics aren't considering that there are a whole army of people in north-central Texas yearning to go to law school but who lack the LSAT scores to get into Texas Wesleyan, Baylor, or Southern Methodist. Not everyone can travel miles and miles to study at Texas Tech, South Texas, Texas Southern, Houston, St. Mary's, or Texas-Austin.

Jesus, how elitist can you people get? Not everyone in Dallas can get the 149 on the LSAT you need to get into Wesleyan. And if Houston has 3 schools, clearly Dallas needs 3 schools.

And none of those other nine schools are even trying to teach practice competencies. South Texas is too busy relying on the BigLaw gravy train brought in my oil and energy money.

So THANK YOU Dean Pryor, for eloquently explaining why there's a clear need to set up another law school in Texas to fully tap out the market for lemmings. One in Dallas, one in the Rio Grande Valley, and frankly they need to put one in El Paso for good measure. THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS WILL RISE AGAIN WITH AN ARMY OF LEGAL STAFFERS. You people trying to stop north-east-central Texans from having an affordable opportunity to become a lawyer in their own backyard should be ashamed of yourselves. What's your self-interest in this? Want to keep rates for Dallas lawyers absurdly high?

I like opportunity and the American dream, not telling the 140 LSAT to go be a plumber, thank you very much.

Mic dropped. Crisis solved. Enjoy your weekends.

Steven Harper Hates Flowers And Other Stuff

Steven Harper, Professor at Northwestern, seems to hate flowers. Steven Harper also (apparently) hates innovation, competition, and access to professional education, not to mention the careers of those at lesser law schools.

From Harper in the Hatermill that is Law.com in response to a well-reasoned op-ed by Dean Huffman of Lewis & Clark:

[Huffman] proposes to end that crisis by helping marginal law schools devise a way to remain in business. Specifically, he thinks that removing most accreditation requirements would unleash a wave of innovation in legal education and "let a thousand flowers bloom."

Here’s a better idea: prune the garden.

Only a sourpuss could hate flowers. Harper's advocacy of wide-spread de-flowerization is downright repugnant and elitist in favor of those gardeners whose flowers are secured behind the walls of prestige (like, say, Harper).

What else does Steven Harper show disdain for?

Free-market capitalism:

Huffman’s non sequitur fails to reflect the ABA’s most obvious contribution to attorney oversupply: accrediting too many new schools—15 since 2003 alone.

Oh, and good salesmanship:

deans free until recently to engage in deceptive behavior to fill their classrooms. Graduate employment rates looked great when schools could include short-term and part-time jobs, work that didn’t require a law degree, and temporary positions that the schools themselves had created. 

And objective ranking schemes that benefit consumers:

Rankings have become central to their business models and the youngest generation of lawyers is paying the price.

American-style innovation:

Allowing schools to increase their use of cheaper non-tenured faculty and to offer on-line classes, as Huffman suggests, won’t solve that problem. 

And the 1st Amendment:

The plethora of deans publishing op-eds in major newspapers presents a new danger. 

So in conclusion, Steven Harper is one big Negative Nancy.

The world needs flowers. It needs all kinds of flowers: roses, tulips, pansies (LOTS of pansies), orchids, daisies, carnations, you name it. For a person to claim the authority to rid the world of whole species of flowers (especially of useful varieties like the shabbius docreviewerus) is just plain wrong.

And for the Phoenix Law Grads: I'm using a metaphor.

So favor species diversification and KEEP OUR LAW SCHOOLS OPEN.

Also, for the gentlemen out there, kindly remember that chicks love flowers, and more than just roses (say, Harvard). Why, I remember one time I took a girl lillies and I got laid from l to d. One time I picked a dandelion near a park bench and got a date out of it. 

The point of my anecdotes is that you can get a degree from Northern Kentucky (a goldenrod) and YOU will be swimming in poontang.

Even if Steven Harper and his "prune the garden" attitude apparently hate the act of human love.

Where Our Internal Dissenters Make Themselves Known

In most revolutions, the people who want to overthrow the powerful reigning state would NOT normally post a list of all the traitors for the entire public to see in one convenient place. But no one ever said law professors know a damn thing about conducting a true revolution.

With a tip of the do-rag to the WSJ (law professors as "academic heavyweights" - lol!), the slimeball iconoclast turncoats who have more conscience than greed (the nerve!) have written a public comment to that ABA Task Force that was presumably supposed to be yet another straw man that didn't actually accomplish anything.

The familiar names are there: Campos, Merritt, Rhode, Tamanaha, Caron, Henderson, Kerr, etc., along with Dick Posner (life as a judge means you don't care as much about the poor saps running the schools) and a few mild surprises like Kent Syverud and Philip Closius and the heart-attack-inducing presence of DICK MATASAR! What the hell? I have a poster of this guy on my wall, and was going to put him on the Mount Rushmore with the VD, Leduc, and Larry Mitchell. Matasar? Please tell me that's a joke, good sir! Please tell me you have taken up refuge with the opposition to foil their plans!

But alas, I then realized my error. Dick Matasar is no longer with the Super-Scam New York Law School. He's now affiliated with the Scam-Prestigious New York University. Being a genius, he knows he has to adapt to the climate change across town, and that it would expected of him if he were at an institution that had little prayer of serious scrutiny. The appearance of doing the right thing is so much more important than helping those on the fourth deck stay above the water line on a sinking ship.

And therein lies the rub. Here be a quick, mostly accurate breakdown of that there traitor list:

T13 Schools: 32
Other Flagship Publics: 13
Other T50 Schools: 15
All other schools: 5

The final group represents around 170 law schools. They found five people on all those faculties. TOILET SOLIDARITY! SCAM FOREVER!

It also means that we need to give special scorn to those who went directly against their class interests and should be martyred to Siberia:

Jim Chen - Michigan State (recently moved from Louisville)
Philip Closius - U. of Baltimore (former dean)
Richard Delgado - U. of Seattle ("One of the leading commentators on race in the United States" - apparently he dislikes the access provided to minorities!)
Frank Elliott - Texas Wesleyan (former dean)
Monroe Freedman - Hofstra (former dean)

At least 3 of these people know better. Thank goodness no current deans signed the list! It'd be a personal and institutional embarrassment, admitting that you or your school is interested in changing for the good of the public and/or the students.

But seriously, if these loud yahoos manage to have any effect on legal education (translation: any effect on profits and margins and the dean's ability to buy luxury imports [cars and 2nd wives]), it's obviously going to be lead by the most prestigious of the gilded lawprofs. The TJLS professor who opens his mouth has no better place than the TJLS student would if they found themselves at a BigLaw convention, which they only would if they sold hot dogs at the booth in the corner that hasn't bought new relish in two years.

Go, Brian Leiter, Go!

You may recall that recently law schools scored yet another victory over the downtrodden whiners when Paul Campos ended his run as a blogspot muckrucker.

Did that stop one of my personal heroes, ubermensch Brian Leiter, esteemed professor of law (snicker) at the esteemed University of Chicago?

Did you really think it would?

In a recent entry, America's Foremost Philosophy Authority(c) took a young Nevada attorney to task for writing him an ungrateful and idiotic email, and as perverted punishment subjected the disobedient waif to the vengeful wrath of pompous academese. THEN, our Conquering Hero laid down The Law (which he can do, people, because he is a LAW professor):

I do think we law professors, and especially those with blogs, have been far too tolerant of malicious and unprofessional conduct by usually anonymous or pseudonymous lawyers and students....

I've generally let most of this garbage pass in silence, but in the coming weeks I'm going to be posting a bit more about some alleged legal professionals whose on-line conduct deserves to be aired in public. I especially welcome more information on a sick individual using the pseudonym "dybbuk,"....

As the good professor reports, some of dybbuk's malicious libel has already been pulled from the 'net.

WIN WIN WIN.

Here's the official scorecard, you degenerate paste-eating halfwits:

LEITER: 532
ANONYMOUS TROLLS: 7

As Nietzsche put it, "that's an asskicking."

Of course, miscreant Paul Campos just HAD to respond to Leiter's continued march towards the Atlantic. Blah blah blah, same ol' garbage that shows nothing more than Campos' own insecurity about his meager place in the law professor hierarchy.

You can read more about this issue at LGM or Volokh, but here is all you need to know in ranking form:

COOL PEOPLE INVOLVED IN THIS SPAT
1. Brian Leiter
2. Dan Filler
3. Anyone else who agrees with Brian Leiter (that's me!)
4. David Bernstein/Paul Campos and other Professors of Law
5. All members of general public who went to top-tier schools
6. Current law students at top law schools and practicing lawyers/judges of prestige
7. General public
8. Shitlawyers and third-tier law students

BEST BLOGS DIRECTLY INVOLVED IN SPAT
1. Leiter Law Reports
(large gap)
2. Volokh
(large gap)
3. Lawyers Guns and Money

BEST ADJECTIVES BRIAN LEITER USED TO DRESS DOWN LAWYER WHO DARED QUESTION HIM
1. Insolent
2. Juvenile
3. Impertinent