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 [...]

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 [...]

ABA Journal Discovers U.S. News’ Debt Rankings

Debra Cassens Wiess, “Average Debt of Private Law School Grads Is $125K; It’s Highest at These Five Schools” ABA Journal The average education debt for law grads at private schools last year was nearly $125,000, while the average for grads of public law schools was more than $75,700, according to new figures released by the [...]

NYSBA Journal Article Relies on Several Logical Fallacies to ‘Connect the Dots’ on Legal Education’s Outlook

Gary Munneke, “Race to the Finish Line: Legal Education, Jobs and the Stuff dreams are made of,” New York State Bar Association Journal Citing his 40-years’ observation of the legal job market, Pace Law School professor Gary Munneke writes, “So when I say the writers and bloggers in the legal press have missed the mark [...]

30 Years after They Graduated…

The law school transparency discussion is animated by the assumption that graduate employment data from nine months out reliably indicate the ROI of a law degree. Readers know I question the “reliability” in the assumption, yet such data are reliable because of the importance of first jobs after graduation and that meaningful employment in the [...]

At Least the Strib Didn’t Call It a “Golden Ticket”

“Law school is no longer a sure bet. Would-be students are noticing.” –Jenna Ross, “Slump in law school applicants,” Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN) Progress perhaps? *Sigh* The swell of students applying to law school — despite growing debt and contracting job prospects — has slowed. ?? “Despite” growing debt and contracting job prospects? Not “Because [...]

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 [...]

A Reading List for the “Conversation about Employment in the Law and Legal Occupations”

Expressing relief at not being named in Cooley’s lawsuit against four John Doe bloggers, BIDER’s Angel includes the e-mail by Cooley’s president, Don LeDuc, to his students assuaging their possible concerns that their law degrees may not be very marketable. He writes: The entire conversation about employment in the law and legal occupations is almost [...]

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 [...]

Exile on Link Street—ABA Pres. Responds to Sen. Boxer, Lenders Protected from Student Debt Default, & Much More

Six links! Much happened in the world of legal education and student debt (1) Debra Cassens Weiss, “BigLaw Lost Nearly 10K Lawyers in the Last Three Years,” in The ABA Journal I can’t speak for 2010, but between 2006 and 2009 the legal sector (which employs most lawyers) lost 67,000 “persons engaged in industry,” according [...]