Plaintiffs contend that they were misled by the statistics into taking on a heavy debt burden in pursuit of employment as attorneys that was much harder to find than the job stats provided by the law schools suggested. They also allege that salary figures may have been compiled from a small sample of law grads with fatter-than-average paychecks.
February 2, 2012
"12 More Law Schools Sued Over Reporting of Law Grad Employment and Salary Stats."
ABA Journal reports:
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20 comments:
ha! that cracks me up. maybe now we'll see some tort reform.
Lawyers are victims too !!!
Hey, I'm a lawyer. We gots 50,000 lawyers in New Jersey. Is it possible we have a glut of lawyers.
Duh.
@Unemployment I deleted your post because you gave a URL that went to a page that had no info on it. And I had to copy and paste the URL to go there. (You didn't make a link.) I wanted to spare my readers going through the trouble to go nowhere.
You made an accusation against my law school, the University of Wisconsin Law School. I did not delete your comment because it's my law school. If you have actual information about my law school that you want to bring up, go ahead. That's not the basis of my deleting.
Following up my own comment, when I first starting practicing in 1983, it occurred to me then that I had gotten in at the wrong time - there were just starting to be too many lawyers.
I was right, although I've done just fine. There are way more lawyers now, many of whom give up and practice for a short time, or never practice at all.
And if they prevail, the consequence will be ... law schools (perhaps all schools, even trade schools) will no longer to release any information on how their grads did in finding employment.
I'm curious to see how these things end up. When I went to law school, my 17th tier school showed me stats about employment which turned out to be BS, or at least seemed to be. It was the old "percentage of responding alum" vs. "percentage of the graduates" that had these great jobs in the big firms. I busted my rear, took a job doing relatively low paid insurance work, then went to a larger - not really big - firm, hated it, and now practice on my own.
The schools need to be clear about employment prospects, but I think the Plaintiffs need to be honest with themselves about the impact those statistics really had on their decision to go to school. I don't feel too bad for the students, graduates, but they (like me) believed things that weren't all that credible, mostly because they wanted to.
Oh, sorry, I don't know how to make it a link.
Sadly, it was my law school, too. I'm not going to post a rant right now, but if you look at the data on UW Law's website regarding graduate salaries (can you find any?), US News' website, and Law School Transparency, you'll see that there's something fishy going on. It really is a shame.
When making a large purchase or investment, you should never simply take the word of the salesperson who is taking your money.
I'm guessing "Kill all the lawyers" has a whole new meaning to those still in law school.
I just discovered that a really bright intern at one of my clients is going to go to law school. I thought "Oh God, doesn't a bright young woman like this follow the news on law schools?" and as fast as the thought formed in my head, I knew the answer was "No".
I feel bad about seeing her march off a cliff, but it's not my place to run her life.
Lawyers lying to Lawyers to Be,
It kind of sounds like a rite of initiation, a monetary hazing if you will. I guess the "honor among thieves" thing only applies to actual thieves, not virtual thieves
It's hard to see the argument supporting the schools' publication of plainly misleading employment stats as a marketing device. But I'm sure one will be advanced, although I doubt that it will relate to the substance of the claim of misleading marketing. Expect a lot of litigation over process issues, with perhaps a bit about the reasonableness of a prospective student's reliance. There is, after all, lots of information available about the state of the job market for new lawyers (also new BAs, new MBAs, new PhDs, etc.) if students would only take the time to look.
But prospective student aren't' qualified to make the necessary appraisal of benefits of the schooling until after they've taken the schooling, By which time it's too late, So now they take their new found knowledge, and put it directly to work by recouping some of the money they themselves were duped out of.
Following up my own comment, when I first starting practicing in 1983, it occurred to me then that I had gotten in at the wrong time - there were just starting to be too many lawyers.
Sound right. I had a family full of lawyers. Was in the pipeline to take over my father's firm but (thankfully) did not choose to pursue a law degree. I remember watching my father deal with the slow decline of the legal profession, starting when they first allowed lawyers to advertise on television. It was heartbreaking for him to see a once proud and reputable profession become what it is now.
I don't know, has a sort of Darwinian flavor to it. Or maybe cannibalistic? Oh, the pathos of lawyers being sued by lawyers.
A series of movies...'Planet of the Lawyers" The catch phrase "Get your hands off me you damn, stinkin' lawyer"!
"Rise of Planet of the Lawyers"!
"Escape From..."
I know it's not funny, but it is.
Thanks for the feel good story of the day! A bunch of lawyers suing because they feel ripped off by a bunch of lawyers!
Sorry to be cynical but I grew up with a couple of illustrious lawyers in my family, including a federal judge, and then found out lots of lawyers are truth challenged, shall we say?
html tag for links Hope this review helps. Tried to explain it but every time I wrote out the code the code disappears. A conundrum
Here comes the roly poly man and he's singing songs of love...
The irony of teaching people how to sue their own university.
I blame John Houseman. The bastard!
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