NYT Supports Private Student Loan Bankruptcy Reform, Protects Financialized Dept. of ED

After trashing for-profit universities, the New York Times editorial, “Relief for Student Debtors” adds this: It had long been the case that federally backed student loans were protected during bankruptcy proceedings. That is reasonable, since those loans were backed by taxpayer dollars and flexibly structured so that borrowers could receive deferment in tough times and [...]

Speed Link: Brief Thoughts on Two National Law Journal Articles

(1) Nicholas J. Spaeth, “At law schools, age bias co-exists with outdated practices.” Spaeth blames law graduate unemployment on the lack of skills law schools impart to them. He writes: The current recession is, of course, a prime reason for the diminution in available jobs. But The Wall Street Journal article [“Law Schools Get Practical”] [...]

WSJ Op-Ed Brings Shock Doctrine to Law Practice

The Wall Street Journal provides space for Brookings Institute fellows Clifford Winston and Robert W. Crandall to publish their op-ed titled, “Time to Deregulate the Practice of Law.” Fuller text available at TaxpProf Blog. The authors use a fictitious attorney shortage and failing legal education system to advance their legal profession deregulation agenda. I’ll limit [...]

Wait, Did Cooley Expose Itself to Liability with Its “Report One”?

One thing I forgot to mention in my post about Cooley’s “Report One: National Employment” and then I’m off to the Mets/Brewers game. Recall Cooley closed with this: In sum, the data shows that the blogs and media segment have it almost completely wrong. Unbiased national data from the past ten years establishes that the [...]

Cooley Embarrasses the Legal Profession with Its “Report One: National Employment”

The purpose of Report One is to insert the nation’s most authoritative employment data into the public dialogue about the national legal employment picture. Since the onset of the recession and during the slow recovery, this public dialogue has been dominated by bloggers and a small element within the media. According to their posts and [...]

Quick Link: Don’t Rely on the New York Fed’s Numbers

The Wall Street Journal’s Justin Lahart created a chart from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showing the cumulative percent change in consumer debt by type since Q3 2008. I’ve seen the NY Fed’s numbers before. Here’s the site. The WSJ took the data from the “Total Debt Balance and Composition” graph to create [...]

Quick Link: ABA House of Delegates Passes Annual Disappointing Student Debt Resolution

In 2010, the ABA House of Delegates passed Resolution 301, which according to the ABA’s report does the following: This resolution addresses the [law school debt] problem by calling upon Congress, the Executive Branch and/or Commercial Lenders to convert private debt into federal loans, which offer more flexible repayment options; and identify federal funding to [...]

Another Day, another Study Overvaluing Law Degrees

“The College Payoff” comes from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce’s analysis of the Census Bureau’s 2007-2009 American Community Survey. Here’re its basic findings for our purposes: Four million dollars for your law degree? No, for two reasons. One, since a bachelors is required for a law degree, we can use Georgetown’s $2,268,000 [...]

Indiana Tech’s Proponents Continue to Make Fools of Themselves, Amuse Critics

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette decided to update us on my new least-favorite new law school (Wilkes-Barre, I miss you!), Indiana Tech School of Law. Readers will recall I dipped into the topic after J-Dog did simply because the university’s reasons for establishing another law school were too absurdly self-serving to pass up, particularly in [...]

Consumer Credit Update (2011 August)

It’s the fifth business day of the month, which means the Federal Reserve has updated its G.19 Release, its estimate of outstanding consumer credit. One problem the U.S. economy faces is that consumer credit is growing faster than the economy. While the G.19 Release doesn’t quantify how much nonrevolving debt is student debt, it is [...]