Law School Reality Archives - Page 26 of 37

Academic Bankruptcy

Columbia University Professor Mark Taylor in a New York Times editorial called “Academic Bankruptcy” rips the current state of higher eduction in the U.S. It’s a must read column for parents and educators. Here are some of his statements:

“colleges and universities, as well as students and their parents, are facing an unprecedented financial crisis. . . . the skyrocketing cost of private education threaten to make college unaffordable for millions of young people. . . . There is a similarity between the debt crisis on Wall Street and what threatens higher education. Just as investors borrowed more and increased their leverage in volatile markets, many colleges and universities are borrowing more and betting on an expanding market in higher education at the precise moment their product is becoming affordable for fewer people.”

Study Implies Higher GPA at a Lower Ranked Law School May be Better than Lower GPA at a Higher Ranked Law School

Law professors Rick Sander and Jane Yakowitz wrote an article called “The Secret of My Success: How Status, Prestige and School Performance Shape Legal Careers.” The professors’ study found that high law school grades are a good indicator of future legal career success. They imply that it may be better to go to a lower ranked law school and get higher grades than go to a high ranked law school where the competition is tougher and get lower grades. For a summary of the article see “Don’t Go to That Law School — It’s Too High-Ranked!“

Further Thoughts on the Higher Education Bubble

University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds, the creator of Instapundit, has a new column on the up coming higher education bubble burst, including advice to parents and students about going into debt to go to college (DON’T) and if a college eduction is necessary at all (not for many jobs these days).

Ex-BigLaw Associate Faces Ethics Case Over Alleged Nonpayment of $78K Student Loan

ABA Journal: “A graduate of the University of Chicago Law School who was being paid over $200,000 a year as an associate at DLA Piper in 2009 is facing a legal ethics complaint that alleges he failed to pay his guaranteed student loan debt.”

See the complaint filed with the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.

More Bad News for Recent Law Grads – Hiring Down & Salaries Flat

The National Association for Legal Career Professionals (NALP) issued a press release about the employment status of the 40,833 2009 law school graduates. “NALP’s Class of 2009 Jobs & JDs report is based on information submitted by 192 ABA-accredited law schools on 96% of the graduates in the Class of 2009. . . . The national median salary for the Class of 2009, based on those working full-time and reporting a salary, was $72,000, unchanged from that for the Class of 2008, and the national mean was $93,454. However, because some large law firm salaries cluster in the $160,000 range while many other salaries cluster in the $40,000–$65,000 range, relatively few salaries were actually near the median or mean.”

“The overall employment rate of 88.3% for Class of 2009 graduates for whom employment status was known represents a 3.6 percentage point drop from the recent historical high of 91.9% for the Class of 2007 . . . nearly 25% of all jobs were reported as temporary . . . .”

See the “Salary Distribution Curve.” For more on the NALP’s findings about the class of 2009, read Employment for the Class of 2009 — Selected Findings or view the May press release about the findings.