ABA Gets Out of the Way of Florida Coastal's Success

As you may recall, Florida Coastal brought suit in federal court against the ABA for vague accreditation standards that unfairly stopped it from fully savoring its meaty prospect pool.  Well - in yet another development showing that the dust of that great irrational rebuke of law school is settling - Florida Coastal dropped the suit:

The new filing offered no insight into why the parties are dismissing the case, but Florida Coastal Dean Scott DeVito said Wednesday that the school is confident in the ABA’s accreditation process moving forward.

“The primary reason we are dropping the suit is that our faith in the process has been restored based on the council’s and section’s interactions with us on our pending issues the last few months, and after the factfinders came last week,” he said.

Translation: Florida Coastal is back, baby!  Want proof?  Their argument is literally that it's competitive with the bottom quintile of law schools in America.

“We talked about our entering credentials being on par with or better than 44 other law schools, our Florida first-time bar pass being above 4 out of 5 comparable law schools in Florida and just 5.5 points below first-tier University of Florida in 2018, the strength and skill of our faculty and academic support, our continuing improvements in career placement, and what great students we have,” DeVito wrote to students.

This is the glory of the ABA and pseudo-regulatory capture.  If one school sucks (relatively: these kids are all budding millionaires, right?), they get isolated, called out,  closed down.  But if it's 44 uncle-fucking schools that all  suck, it's the standards that are the problem.  Strength in numbers

As of this writing, Florida Coastal's non-discounted cost on Law School Transparency is $255,736.  It boasts a 37.4% employment score.  Its reported LSAT spread is 140-147.  The school is so confident that things are going to go well with the ABA's Council on Legal Education later this spring it dismissed its lawsuit with prejudice. Ask yourself if the future hearing has any real teeth behind it.

It's truly a wonder why Valpo, Whittier, et al, opted to close.  Running one of these businesses is like writing subprime mortgages but you're permanently stuck in 2004 and Fannie Mae is wearing a spiked dog collar with your initials on it.  I'm jealous of the joy these folks must feel sending out admission letters.  Legitimately jealous.

The legal academy may hate Donald J. Trump and the broad strain of American libertarianism, but it's with a big ironic wink; its crappiest members clearly enjoy the profits of a totally neutered regulatory scheme paired with a rigged "free market."  They're no different, deep down, than the typical Fox News economist, and it's truly a glorious, glorious thing to be on the right side of such ideology.

Florida Coastal Contemplates Savvy Corporate Reorganization

As we know, one of the bugaboos of law school detractors is "for-profit" status, an offshoot, one supposes, of this Millenial trope that after nothing but historical success with unfettered capitalism, maybe America should try socialism.  Nation is a grand experiment, I suppose.

In reality:  Liz Warren faked her ethnicity and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not go to law school. Capitalism wins, Q.E.D.

The thing about law schools is that the faculties/administrators are as smart as the grease-slick companies their faculty members would be advising at white shoe firms but-for their steadfast commitments to public service.  See, e.g., Florida Coastal's corporate reorganization scheme:

Florida Coastal School of Law, a Jacksonville-based for-profit institution, says it will seek to reclassify as a nonprofit entity, joining a number of other for-profit institutions that have recently announced plans to change tax status as a solution to legal, regulatory or marketing hurdles...

Law school officials say the change would allow professors to apply for federal research grants and would facilitate the expansion of an endowment. Converting to nonprofit status would also have the added benefit of reducing federal regulatory requirements and removing a for-profit label that has become toxic for many students.

Live from Jacksonville, it's a checkmate.  Just as prestigious institutions all across the fourth tier have learned, if you simply move from an independent for-profit to a "better" status, you expand your market potential even while retaining the exact same profitably shit-stained standards.

Isn't anything actually going to change at Florida Coastal?  Shit, no.  It's got a nice thing going and it's turning out future millionaires.  Who in their right mind would change that formula because what some snooty hunchbacks in other places spit at their computer monitors? But you improve the bait, sometimes you land bigger fish.

Enjoy that new research money and reduced regulatory requirements, Florida Coastal, but never change for real.  We love you just the way you are.

The Charleston Saga: Law School as Living Horatio Alger Metaphor

Ah, where were we?  Oh, yes.  Charleston School of Law had finally vanquished and driven out the greedy proprietors who were attempting to sell the city's crown jewel to Infilaw.  Despite Infilaw offering superior legal career trajectory at a market-beating price, Charleston alumni and students felt they could do better, just like the numerous women who turned down my various proposals yelled at them from moving vehicles.  And who could blame them, really? This is America and the gas is pumpin', baby; almost everyone is doing great; everyone except you, in fact.  Infilaw itself has even found more profitable uses of its capital than running successful law schools, proving that legal education is a competitive market giving students lots of bang for little buck.

The good news doesn't stop there.  Charleston has been mightily rewarded for its dogged perseverance. Look at how high it has hoisted itself:

Bell’s splashiest proposal at the time, making the school a nonprofit, is still in the works as the school files paperwork with multiple regulatory groups. As part of the process, the school has paid off $6 million it owed to InfiLaw after backing out of the deal — partly using the school’s funds, partly using Bell’s own money, according to the attorney. Bell said he believes the school can complete the transition by early 2020.

Money well spent, sir! I mean, just look at how the fine specimens develop:

Charleston School of Law’s bar passage rates have lagged for years, a phenomenon that Bell and other college officials have blamed in part on the InfiLaw deal. Some of the school’s top-performing students transferred out shortly after the deal was announced in 2015. Bell said the influx of Charlotte transfers might also be a factor.
...Change is coming, Bell said. With more applicants each year, the cutoff LSAT scores for entry to the Charleston School of Law are on the rise.

“It’s becoming harder to get in. Our profile of students has gone up,” Bell said.

According to Law School Transparency, CSOL has a 44% employment score, a 46.7% bar passage rate, a robust LSAT spread of 143-151, and a non-discounted cost of $241,146.

Brother, if that's not progress to brag about, I don't know what is.  What a happy epilogue for all involved.  You dance, Charleston.  You dance.  And scam on.

Albany Law School Finally Catches Financial Break

As we all know, a life is judged on the size of an estate.  Morally, anyway, it's a fair approximation.  Economically, you'd have to consider the assets of the state, liquidity, expected rates of return, etc.  But the rule stands that a man with millions to flush down the toilet can be assumed to have done good, smart, upright things in life.

We know that most critics of the legal education system, by contrast, are morally bankrupt, and, I suspect, their finances fare little better.  They may live well, upper middle class perhaps given the lofty salaries of even government lawyers and contract compliance officers, but true elitist wealth surely remains elusive, the intangibles forces of such accretions sensing their cold, slime-coated hearts.

Albany Law receives some spittle from the latter, but this donation from one of the better class's members no doubt makes all that abacus booger flicking worthwhile:

Albany Law School has received $15 million, the largest gift in school history from an anonymous donor whose support will help the school continue providing free legal services.
...
Ouellette said the donation would be noticed around the world, though she conceded some people might wonder why a donor gave $15 million to a smaller upstate law school.

The well-read reader may recognize the circumstance - a mysterious benefactor issuing a head-scratching donation - as downright Dickensian in a way, and indeed Albany Law School is as good of a recipient for sudden pseudo-humanist largesse from an old coot as Bob Motherfuckin' Crachit.

Don't believe me?  Let's ask Dean Ouellette if her institution is worthy:

"We realized as we talked among ourselves that we are really one of the best-kept secrets in the Capital Region," Ouellette said, "and it makes perfect sense that someone would look at us as a place to leave a legacy gift like this."

She said the school was "reinventing legal education in order to meet societal need," and a "little bit of a unicorn" — an independent law school thriving at a time when similar institutions are failing.

Indeed!  Given the typical humility of law school programs - I recall the brochures being quite modest about opportunities when I applied, drastically undercutting the orgasmic pleasure and financial opportunities afforded by a legal education - it comes as no surprise that it would take a $15 million donation for administrators to sit around and talk amongst themselves about how amazing they are.

I'm reminded of my favorite passage in Great Expectations when Pip learns from the esteemed lawyer (!) Mr. Jaggers that he has just been dealt the rare and inexplicable (well, without a law degree!) "Social Class Upgrade" card:

“I am instructed to communicate to him,” said Mr. Jaggers, throwing his finger at me sideways, “that he will come into a handsome property. Further, that it is the desire of the present possessor of that property, that he be immediately removed from his present sphere of life and from this place, and be brought up as a gentleman,—in a word, as a young fellow of great expectations.”
My dream was out; my wild fancy was surpassed by sober reality; Miss Havisham was going to make my fortune on a grand scale.  When I contemplated it, it made for perfect sense.  I was one of the best-kept secrets within a gentle carriage ride of London's orbit, a 'little bit of a unicorn'  myself, combining the greater virtues of the lesser and superior classes with the prodigious butter-churn of a Vulcanized Adonis; by God, were I to come into sufficient bank notes and credit, I could effortlessly mold Victorian England towards the justice of the purest-hearted monarchs, a hundred pupils at a thousand quid a head, no matter how dim their candles flicker!  Hie, great legal stallions!  Fear not the debtor's prison, for you can discharge your indentures with liberty and service to the crown!  Oh, my apologies...

As much as Dickens gets flack for being stodgy and prone to antiquated, reductionist moral lessons dressed in purplish prose, he was damned prescient.

What the fuck is a little bit of a unicorn?  Isn't that a pony?  Congratulations, Albany.  You've earned it.

Periodic Reminder That Your Minimal Competence Standard is Racist

New year, old story:

[A group of California law deans] suggest the state’s minimum passing score of 144 is too high, compared to the national average of 135, and disproportionately keeps African-American and Latino law graduates from entering the profession...
[I]f California adopted the national average, the number of African-American law graduates passing the exam would have doubled.

If you haven't heard this argument, or developed it on your own upon a thoughtful review of the legal education system, as all good lawyers must undertake regularly, you aren't trying hard enough.  Not unlike the bar failures you might say, you racist bonehead.

But this article goes above and beyond.  In particular, check out this aspirant for the Nick Allard Award:

“More clients insist on having diverse lawyering teams, and this is an irony,” said UCLA School of Law Dean Jennifer Mnookin “We are this extraordinarily diverse state that is reducing the pool of good lawyers.”

Assert a dubious fact without proof, misuse the word "irony," misuse the word "good," and throw a needless "extraordinarily" in the quote. When I read passages like this, I am enraptured in a sort of ecstasy. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty.  I reach the point where one encounters celestial sensations. Everything speaks so vividly to my soul. I have palpitations of the heart. Life is drained from me.

But she doesn't stop there!

“The bar exam was invented as a paper and pencil test,” she said, suggesting that past generations focused on memorization while current law students rely more on quickly accessing online data. “Some of what is on the bar exam might not be a good fit for this generation.”

I am not worthy.  Even as satire one couldn't come up with such a brazenly absurd excuse for declining bar scores; my god, you do what your elders did and cram for a month on bummed pills and coffee.  It's not like the laptop and an internet connection were invented in 2012. Old timers, many of whom are clinical idiots, had access these magical things called books using indices and KeyCites, so it's not like they had any greater need to memorize things in practice

It's potentially the dumbest argument the LSTC has ever encountered in support of Law Schools Gone Wild.  But there the argument is, in all its glory!  In print, from a Harvard undergrad, Yale law grad, MIT PhD!

So I'm doing what all good apologists do and adopting it wholesale.  I join the law deans' call to end the racist bar exam by lowering the minimum passing score in not just California, but all jurisdictions, and give these kids access to Westlaw and their mobile phones during the test. 

It is, after all, what clients want.

Happy 2019, You Loser Journalists Still Fighting "Good" Fight

I thought we were past this.

It's 2019.  The "scam" - which is totally apocryphal with no basis in reality- definitively existed from the legal profession's fashionably delayed recognition of a recession in 2009 to around Esquire Larry Mitchell's resignation in the spring of 2014.  Since then, we've had a rebound of applicants, slow acceptance of Michael Simkovic's ground-breaking research as unassailable truth, and law deans singin' and dancin' like R. Kelly.

Yet, when I scroll the ho-hum news of legal gallantry - nothing makes a morning like a scroll of Above the Law on the toilet with a White Russian in hand and a rail of coke near the sink - I still see incomprehensible, retrogressive piffle like this.

Boston law schools are fighting to climb their way out of an enrollment and employment crisis despite a “Trump bump” of activist legal eagles that some say is modestly boosting application rates.

“Graduating law school is no longer the ticket to a very comfortable upper-middle-class living,” said civil liberties and constitutional law crusader Harvey Silverglate. He said there is an “oversupply” of lawyers in the state, making it difficult for graduates to find a job.

“You can’t blame people for not going to law school when they can go out directly from college and get a fairly well-paying job,” said Silverglate, “The value of the degree has gone down, but the price of attending law school has gone up.”

Harvey Silverglate?  C'mon, journos.  You can't use rejected Willy Wonka villains for sources.

It's truly curious that law schools and legal journalists would see (encourage!) a "Trump bump" - that our President is so respectful of our legal system and the benefits/protections it can confer on good people that it makes people want to study law - as many of the problems of journalism appear in criticism of the President as appear in skeptical articles about law school.

For example, look at the amount of "fake news" in this one mule-headed article.  Here's the fourth paragraph:

According to data from the American Bar Association, enrollment rates at top Boston law schools have plummeted since 2012 — with Suffolk University seeing a 29 percent reduction; Boston College, nearly 14 percent; and Northeastern University at 7 percent.

Boston College, Northeastern, and Suffolk are not "top" law schools.  They're middle-of-the-road, versatile law schools, representative of the firm greatness of legal education from across the country.  How's enrollment rates at Harvard, hmmmm?  And here's more with the ender:

“Bar pass rates are often a lagging indicator of what law schools are doing and what kind of students they are bringing in,” Perlman said.

My hairy beanbag is a lagging indicator.  Bar pass rates are a sign that Millennial students are spending too much time on their xPhones and iBoxes, nothing more, nothing less.

Journalism can be better than this.  In the dawn of this New Year, let's resolve to make it so.  No more negativity.  Only intelligent positivity.  And in-depth content.  And sales, as appropriate, of course.

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.
...
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."
...

[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. 

...

"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.
 ...
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.

This Thanksgiving, Toss Some Buzzwords Into Your Potatoes!

Perhaps more than any other holiday, Thanksgiving creates a golden opportunity for benign-appearing law school recruitment.  Other relatives think it's a good time to casually snipe at Donald Trump or Nancy Pelosi. Reject that superficial nonsense and play 5-D chess by conning the next generation while smirking and throwing a whipped cream-shot on that hot warm pumpkin pie.

'Merica.

Here, for example, are just some classics for those ripe relatives.  Bonus points if you rope someone's tag-along significant other into applying and then they break up, and double bonus points if you work in a tasteless reference to current events (e.g., Pepperdine being a hot choice).

• "The LSAT is way easier than the MCAT or GRE.  It's not even curved or anything, and law schools are now taking people who score like a 150."
• "The time to buy is when other people are selling, and people have been selling law school for years."
• "My friend is in Brooklyn and can't find a lawyer to take a definitely good and viable case.  Brooklyn!" 
• "I saw on the news the other day, you won't believe this, but apparently so many law schools have closed that the lawyer shortage is expected to increase dramatically in the next few years."
• "Rural places are so desperate for lawyers that they're actually paying people to practice law there now!"
•  "The only good thing about all that regulation that Bay-rack O'bummer put in is that there's got to be a demand for all sorts of lawyers now gettin' rich off it."
• "My lawyer friend just bought a 7500 square foot house."
• "My lawyer friend just bought a Porsche."
• "My lawyer friend's kids won't speak to him because he's banging his smokeshow secretary."
• "My lawyer friend says it's exactly like Law & Order."

 But if you really want some inspiration for your script, check out this hooker thong of an article and get drunk on self-righteous buzzwordin':

• "Law is entering the age of the consumer and bidding adieu to the guild that enshrined lawyers and the myth of legal exceptionalism."
• "Law is no longer solely about lawyers; law firms are not  the default provider of legal services; legal practice is no longer synonymous with legal delivery; the legal buy/sell balance of power has shifted from lawyers to legal buyers; lawyers do not  control both sides of legal buy/sell; and the function and role of most lawyers is changing as digital transformation has made legal consumers—not lawyers—the arbiters of value."
• ""Knowing the law” is now a baseline that must be augmented by new skills that are seldom taught by law schools—data analytics, business basics, project management, risk management, and "people skills" to cite a few."
•  "There is enormous opportunity to train students to better serve law’s “retail” segment. Tens of millions of new legal consumers would enter the market if there were more new, efficient delivery models that better leverage lawyer time utilizing technology, process, data, metrics, and a client-centric business structure."

It's like when you find a politician who agrees with you on a pet issue and then he keeps going and you try to get out of the room but some jackass has barricaded doors and you've found your own private hell.

In other words, it's perfect for law school persuasion.  Remember: these kids haven't gone through the process yet.  They still believe in fairness and that money-making systems can change because they morally should.  Dumb Millennials.

And what's really great about this multi-sided naivete is that the law school industrial complex can milk the fuck out of this fat cow. New faculty specialists in legal technology.  Hybrid, Frankenstein-spawned law/business management degrees.  Certificate programs in SQL and the Law.

But of course, nothing is more crucial to this "new" lawyering than experiential learning.  And what better way is there to learn the methods of venture capitalism than torching three years of time and a stack of cash on a risky venture?  Which brings me to my final selling point at the o' holiday table:

• "And if it doesn't work out, it's not like Chapter 13 is the end of the world."