Why Is Shpoonkle Shilling Law Degrees?

“Market for Attorney Employment Has Never Been Better,” PRWeb.com “The economy has been tough on everyone…” opens Shpoonkle’s press release, in direct contradiction to its title. This, folks, is how not to write a press release. The thing about Shpoonkle is that its reverse-auction model should be sophisticated enough to indicate whether the market for [...]

ABA Accredits ‘Generic University School of Law’

The ABA has updated its legal education data. I’m updating my files, and I came across this in the “J.D. Enrollment by School” PDF. I’ll say this about the Generic University School of Law: It’s a middle-tier outhouse that can’t even fill its seats.

Coming to a State Bar near You ¬– Beggar Thy Neighbor

In my last post on the Massachusetts Bar Association’s underemployment report, I was flying blind because the link to the report was broken, and it wasn’t readily available on the MBA’s Web site. It’s up today, so I can give it a fairer read, and I was surprised to find two endnotes to the LSTB. [...]

No Massachusetts, Law School Should Not Be More Like Medical School

Lisa van der Pool, “Report: Law school should be more like medical school,” in Boston Business Journal. van der Pool is given the task of reporting on what the Massachusetts Bar Association’s Task Force on Law Schools, consisting of 14 lawyers, thinks needs to be done about “Law, the Economy and Underemployment.” Task force co-chair [...]

May Day General Strike Protest Pictures

I was out and about on May Day last week. Meant to get these photos up sooner, sadly. Occupy Wall Street designated May 1 as a general strike day. Frankly, seeing general strike graffiti made me think I was living in a Terry Gilliam movie. It was that surreal. Here’s the gallery, a new WordPress [...]

Open Letter to the New York State Bar Association

I didn’t intend to write anything about the new mandatory 50-hour pro bono requirement New York will impose on its bar applicants next year, figuring I had nothing new to add. However, I received an e-mail from the New York State Bar Association’s Office of the President, saying: In his Law Day speech on Tuesday, [...]

Give Credit Where Due

Rachel M. Zahorsky, “Law School Closings and Changes to Student Loan Bankruptcy Laws May Be Ahead, Says Former Dean,” ABA Journal. Former law school dean at Nebraska and Houston, Nancy Rapoport, favors bankruptcy reform for student debtors. This is important because law professors are usually more interested in discussing the need for reforming legal education [...]

The Verdict Is in on the Lottery, Why not Law School?

Jenn Ladd, “Law School Letdown,” the Baltimore Sun. The article isn’t bad, but the tagline is: “With a hefty price tag and a shrinking number of jobs, is law school worth all the effort? The verdict is still out.” The Sun, though, is in sort of a bind. Often local newspapers will only consider their [...]

Bloomberg Casually Slaps Law Schools, Uses Some Misleading Facts

Josh Block and Janet Lorin, “Law School Debt Exceeds $100,000 Amid Jobs Shortage,” Bloomberg. I have to say this has been a weird week for media coverage on law schools. On the one hand they’re somewhat more critical of law schools and show a willingness to research some facts, but on the other hand, they’re [...]

Slate (Reuters, Really) Sees Law School Deans as Tragic Figures

Reynolds Holding, “Law School Deans Could Use Some Econ 101,” in Slate, Reuters Breakingviews. I’ve found Slate has become increasingly less readable over the last several months, so as punishment I’m going to beat up on it for republishing this piece. “Tuition at the likes of Yale and Stanford keeps rising faster than inflation, despite [...]