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 [...]

March 2011: Economists Discover Tuition Increases

It’s really not as glamorous as it sounds. The main impetus for the discussion is the November election. Candidate Obama said: “We’re putting colleges on notice: you can’t assume that you’ll just jack up tuition every single year … If you can’t stop tuition from going up, then the funding you get from taxpayers each [...]

Two Worlds, Side by Side: ABA Journal & Letter from Law School

I received a letter from my law school subtly informing me that my name would be placed on “the permanent donor wall located near the entrance” if I gave a gift or commitment of $5,000. The same day, the ABA Journal published Bill Henderson’s article titled, “The Law School Bubble: How Long Will It Last [...]

Discredited Cooley Arguments Just … Won’t … DIE!

Today’s installment of law school zombie arguments comes from none other than Nelson Miller, dean of Cooley’s branch campus in Grand Rapids, who asked for an editorial slot on The Careerist, operated by Vivia Chen, who writes, “[H]e wanted to present a view that’s ‘data-based.’” Miller then presents data that are wholly irrelevant. Data shows [...]

Two Quick Comments on David Segal’s Portrait of Richard Matasar

(1)  Law schools cannot self-terminate. I suppose it’s safe to say that when NYLS dean Richard Matasar stepped down, I was easier on him than David Segal is in today’s NYT piece, “Law School Economics: Ka-Ching!” My personal opinion that I realized after I published my piece is that if you want to be a [...]

Pew Research Center Irresponsibly Overvalues Law Degrees

Pew Researchers analyzed the ROI of higher education using Census data (the American Community Survey (ACS)) and cost data (National Center for Education Statistics (NCES)) and published their findings in a piece titled, “Is College Worth It?” (chapter 5, The Monetary Value of a College Education). On the ROI of a four-year college degree, it [...]

A Less Gilded Past: The SmallLaw Dead Pool

[****THIS RESEARCH IN THIS POST HAS BEEN CONSOLIDATED ON THIS PAGE. PLEASE LINK TO THAT INSTEAD.****] “A Less Gilded Future,” in the Economist [H/T JETs with J.D.s] Opening with the tale of Howrey’s passage to the BigLaw Dead Pool, the Economist tells us: Though Howrey was the only big firm to collapse- ***sound of needle [...]

Dead by Dawn: Law Schools & Law Students per Capita (1960s-2010)

I recently exhumed Jack Crittenden’s March 2010 bottleneckus maximus piece defending the legal education system, “A Wise Investment?” in The National Jurist. Rereading it shows just how badly he misinterpreted the data he gathered, and rather than dismember all his zombie arguments like I’m Ash from Evil Dead II, I’ll limit myself to his mischaracterizations [...]

ABA Journal: “Should Law Schools Ban Anal Probing?”

…is what Debra Cassens Weiss would’ve titled her ABA Journal post instead of, “Are Laptops Too Tempting? Most 2Ls and 3Ls Doodle for More Than Half the Class, Study Finds,” had she total workplace autonomy and a ribald sense of humor. Her post reminds me of one of my favorite Kids in the Hall sketches [...]

Will Fewer LSAT-takers Mean Lower Tuition? (All the World Wonders)

James B. Levy, “December LSAT test-takers drop 16.5% from last year; first time test-takers down 22%,” in Legal Skills Prof Blog J-Dog, “LSAT, Law School Applications Down 10+% Year-over-Year” in Restoring Dignity to the Law Knut, “Are They Finally Paying Attention?” in First Tier Toilet ! In the light of this disturbing picture, one might [...]