Last week I read a blog post on a law professor’s blog in which he notified the world that the University of Alabama law school was starting a new  program offering lawyers a masters degree in law (LL.M.) in tax law.   Although the law school has offered a masters in tax degree since 1977, this new program will allow students to take all of the courses online over the internet. The ivory tower prof who wrote the post proudly announced not only the beginning of the new law school program, he also linked to a brochure about the new program, linked to a video about the new program, gave the class schedule and an email address at the University of Alabama where people could send messages for more information.  Makes me wonder why the prof is shilling so hard for the new program.  I suspect he thinks it is wonderful that more young lawyers will be able to  go deeper into debt to get a masters degree in tax law.  I’ve got news for him, the view from the ivory tower is much different than the view from the trenches where young lawyers must seek employment.

After reading the blog post on the new LL.M. in tax program I submitted a comment to the ivory tower guy’s post that was critical of the new masters in tax program, but he refused to publish my comment .   He probably didn’t want anybody to rain on his law school is  the greatest thing and masters in tax degrees are the ultimate parade.  A few days later I sent the prof a message asking why he would not publish my comment.  He didn’t have the courtesy to answer my question.  The following is the comment that I submitted to ivory tower guy that he refused to publish as a comment:

Adding a new LL.M. in tax program is absurd at this time.  There is no need for more tax LL.M.s  I’ve read recently that laws schools are graduating around 70,000 prospective lawyers a year, but the legal market is only hiring 40,000 new lawyers.  I have an LL.M. in tax from New York University, and I just don’t see the need for more lawyers with this degree. (more…)