<p>Few days ago this story made the LA Times about dozens of law school grads across the country suing their schools on the basis of misrepresentations the schools made to them relating to employment success after graduation. Apparently, the Bar requires schools to post their employment stats, and they did, one CA school in particular, boasted a 97% employment rate 9 mos after graduation. But as some grads discovered too late, "employment" by definition can mean part-time barrista at Starbucks. </p>
<p>Not sure I agree with their methodology, but I guess there's a lesson in this to all of us, caveat emptor, and if it's too good to be true, it's probably not. Interesting story, check it out LA</a> Times</p>
<p>Haha too right. How comically ironic, like the statement in the article that says lawyers will be needed in the future to represent the poor and low income, groups who are growing in numbers and have the highest need for legal services. Riiiiiiiighht that’s what unemployed grads should be beating the bushes for, pro bono clients!</p>
<p>I think it’s detestable but what’s new is the concept that you can sue your school for failure to get you a job, and the court’s allowing this, at least in CA! That is in essence what’s going on here. Newly minted lawyers can’t find a job and have found a way to make a claim of misrepresentation. I just wonder if this will spread beyond law schools?</p>
<p>The print edition of the article (April 2) included a table listing employment rate for grads of different law schools. Even USC and UCLA grads faced challenges:</p>
<p>Percentages of California law school graduates in 2011 who had found full-time, long-term jobs as lawyers nine months after graduation (rounded to nearest %):</p>
<p>Stanford 91%
UC Berkeley 80%</p>
<p>USC 65%
UCLA 61%
UC Davis 56%</p>
<p>University of San Diego 47%
UC Hastings 47%
McGeorge 44%
Santa Clara 43%
Pepperdine 43%
Loyola Marymount 43%
Chapman 40%</p>
<p>California Western 39%
Southwestern 35%
U. of San Francisco 34%
La Verne 33%
Western State 32%</p>
<p>Thomas Jefferson 27%
Golden Gate 22%
Whittier College 17%</p>
<p>A bunch of unemployed lawyers against the mega firms that represent the school and the judge who likely is a graduate and has fond feeling for alma mater? Hmmmm -Stabucks might be worth considering?</p>
<p>I do not think that these lawsuits are wasteful.
If they get schools to stop misrepresentation in how they market their services to students, this is quite an accomplishment.
Such misrepresentation happens not only in Law School, but MBA Programs and Undergrad Programs as well.</p>
<p>I don’t remember whether my law school made any representation as to employment rate in its materials, many years ago. I didn’t even consider looking at employment rate at one school or another. I figured that I would graduate, take the bar and look for a job, and that the looking for the job would be mostly my responsibility. Even in that distant past, there was the concept of good, better, and best law schools in terms of reputation. You didn’t even have to get there to know that how well you did was important - the movie “The Paper Chase” had made that clear. Are college grads less informed in this day of internet than we were in the print age? </p>
<p>In my day in NY state the passing rate for any given bar exam was slightly below 80%. You might be fired from the job you got out of law school if you didn’t pass the bar, although most of the bigger firms gave you more than one chance. I thought the California bar was supposed to be even harder than NY. I never did see the statistics for people who never passed, but I knew several people who gave up trying to pass after multiple failures.</p>
<p>Just seems like trying to blame someone else for their own failure. I knew people who went to unaccredited law schools 30 years ago, flunked a couple of bar exams, and finally got legal employment when they passed the bar. The times were tough then too.</p>
<p>Glad, I loved that quote too about the lack of critical thinking shown by this gullible group who blindly relied upon the info given to them. It’s funny that when I brought this story up to an astute lawyer friend of mine, first words out of his mouth were, did they define “employment?” Haha spoken like a true lawyer. I recall being turned off of law school way back in the dark ages because my dad said “there’s too many lawyers.”</p>
<p>Hard edged bunch here-especially this comment:
Just seems like trying to blame someone else for their own failure. I knew people who went to unaccredited law schools 30 years ago, flunked a couple of bar exams, and finally got legal employment when they passed the bar. The times were tough then too.</p>
<p>Yeah, well, I lived through those times, too, and take no pleasure in the terrible debt these guys have-and that’s the difference. Years ago going to law school may have been a mistake, but it was a relatively cheap mistake. Now, it’s a mountain of debt, fueled by knowing misrepresentations made by the law schools themselves. Why the fake jobs stats? There are many more grads nationwide than there are jobs, and there are still law school apologists-some of them parents!-who foist the old canard “you can do anything with a law degree” upon the gullible. YOu can’t-you can practice law, if you can get a job. Period.
And it’s going to be a disaster for taxpayers, as this mountain of debt isn’t going to get paid. So are the students going to win? NOt likely-but maybe the lawsuits will inform the credulous to think twice before attending law school. And I’d like to see them win-maybe some of the debt will actually get paid; these are mostly government funded loans.
And for those who want to blame the students, or think they had it tough too, etc, etc. Leave the schadenfruede for others; it’s a disaster for our country to have so many in so much debt with little or no way to ever pay it back.</p>
<p>Cranky, I agree something needs to be done and that’s why I posted this story. I am sympathetic to their plight, however, I’m not in agreement that lawsuits solve problems. I just think law grads becoming their own best clients is the tipping point. I guess hit 'em where it hurts most is their MO, I just can’t conscience that.</p>
<p>Not the first time that an article has been written about these lawsuits, and of course there have been some dismissals of the suits already. Nevertheless, it’s buyer-beware. Prospective law students continue to believe that they will be the exception.</p>
<p>My kid graduated from a state school last year that supposedly had good employment stats. Two years ago in the Fall, the Dean called a meeting of the students to report that they were “changing” the way that they reported employment, and that the stats for the prior year’s graduates were dropping by >25%. The 3Ls knew that the job market wasn’t good, but the new numbers came as a complete shock. My kid ultimately did find a legal job, and can now fill his own gas tank and even eat sometimes. The practice-area isn’t want he had wanted to do, but he’s been lucky enough to work for someone who has been a great mentor. Many of his classmates who graduated in May, 2012 are still hunting for jobs, as the new class of 3Ls is breathing down their necks.</p>
<p>I’d be giving Cranky’s post a “thumbs up,” if we had that feature on CC.</p>
<p>As I’ve been saying since 2004, the biggest threat to expanding legal services to the poor and working class is skyrocketing tuition. People who pay two hundred grand a year for law school will walk across broken glass to get a BigLaw job, even if they really want to save the world. </p>
<p>If these kids were graduating debt-free or almost debt-free, then they could work pro-bono for a year, then leverage their experience into better employment.</p>