http://eliemystttalspeaks.ytmnd.com/

FIRST

eeeeek!!! yum yum yum
-cooleyed all over my shorts

Semper five.

now all the cooley kids are going to be at ricks and skeeps telling the girls they go to mich law....

Nothing like bashing another law school to pass the time while all you "T-14's" sulk over layoffs.

3 = fail

elie this is a disgustingly pretentious post.

Elie:
Day after day you churn out pure rubbish. I have never seen you make a valid point. Meeting of the minds? Are you serious? Not only do you know nothing about the law, your lame attempts at humor fail miserably. I'm through with this site.

Everyone knows you aint Cooley unless you pee your pants.

"Only a white man would name a law school after an ethnic slur."

-- SotomayOR!

The typos are horrible! That middle sentence should read:

"For far too long, Elie has called himself "educated" without even a rudimentary understanding of the legal system."

Get it right!

12,000 degrees a year?
I think you are going to need to cite a source before I believe that one.

Actually, Ave Maria was a pretty good law school. A few years ago they had a 100% bar passage rate.

Thanks ABA for allowing Cooley to further saturate the legal market. This also comes on the heels of North Texas announcing they are starting a law school. Here are my suggestions for some other cities that are legally underrepresented because their city doesn't possess a law school:

* Santa Claus, IN
* Minot, N.D.
* Panama City, FL

ABA, you better build some law schools in these cities. These are the only three cities left in the country without a law school in town.

hasn't this multiple campus strategy been explored and proven to be a terrible idea? I mean, really, what good has come out of Widener Harrisburg???? What a joke of a school. Congrats Cooley, you're on your way!

lol freaking awesome.

i'm glad that i'll have a place to sit now.

I get it. MysTTTal let a Cooley grad pen this article for effect. Nicely done.

TTThomas Cooley

TTT

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TTT

TTT

TTT

TTT

TTT

TTT

TTT

TTT

TTT

TTT

TTT

TTT

TTT

TTT

TTT

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Louis Zaccareli makes more money than all of you.

TTThomas Cooley

Elie,

Perhaps you should consider refering your internet porn provider to restatement of contracts section 90.

State of Michigan = TTT

I will BANG YOUR ARSE!!!!!!

I will BANG YOUR ARSE!!!!!!

Comment removed by moderator.

17 - Agreed. Widener Harrisburg is a shit campus and should have been unaccredited a long time ago. The same holds true with this stupid idea from Cooley. WHY ARE YOU ALLOWING THIS, ABA???

If there's one thing you learn in contracts it's that there is no "meeting of the minds" standard.

Just came all over Mystal's moobs.

KABOOM!

No one ever questioned the second IHOP.

According to their website, there are 3723 students enrolled at Cooley, presumably including LLMs. That means the number of JDs issued per year is closer to 1200, not 12,000.

http://www.cooley.edu/overview/factsataglance.htm

If you scroll down to the bottom, it says "Cooley Graduates... 12000+ in all 50 states and a [sic] 12 countries."

That's 12000+ total, not per year. Given that you went to a school that didn't sprout up last year, one thinks you'd understand that.

Also, not all skydiving mishaps involve parachutes that don't inflate.

Does Cooley really graduated 12000 a year?!

According to their website, there are 3723 students enrolled at Cooley, presumably including LLMs. That means the number of JDs issued per year is closer to 1200, not 12,000.

http://www.cooley.edu/overview/factsataglance.htm

If you scroll down to the bottom, it says "Cooley Graduates... 12000+ in all 50 states and a [sic] 12 countries."

That's 12000+ total, not per year. Given that you went to a school that didn't sprout up last year, one thinks you'd understand that.

Also, not all skydiving mishaps involve parachutes that don't inflate.

SMU's Waco campus should have been put out of its misery years ago.

Can we all agree that this is one ship that we hope be sinking?

Elie, you are such an elitist piece of shit. How is anyone's degree or job devalued by the fact that Cooley is opening another campus?

If a T4 school can recruit people at $30K a year, let them. What difference does it make to you.

Guys, the 12,000 was an exaggeration. Isn't that "clear parody?" Should I have said 12,000,000? Also, I don't think Cooley students are genetically similar to locusts. And, for the record, I also don't think I've ever received goat-play spam, nor do I think that a person would go to Cooley, get a law degree, and then send me goat-play spam.
--Elie

Not nice to impose additional competition on Michigan grads. They'll need those jobs with the way 2009 OCI is looking.

15 = no.

bar passage rate does not equal a good school.

nice try.

"I'm so sick of telling my internet porn provider that even if goat play spam was technically contemplated in the terms of the agreement, there was no meeting of the minds; only to have him not know what I'm talking about."

I know some you don't like Elie's humor, but that was pretty funny. Made me laugh out loud anyway.

already too many lawyers

Does this really suprise anyone? Shitty idea from a shitty school.

41,

good bar pass rate = / = good school, but bad bar passage rate = bad school

if the actual figures differ only by a decimal point and the author has a long established history of typos I think "clear parody" is a little generous.

Ah....you can just imagine the law school propaganda already..."Cooley-Ann Arbor, were no single graduate has failed the bar or been passed over for BigLaw to date...."

I treat Cooley students like I treat ginger kids, by kicking them anytime we cross paths.

I have this friend, let's call him "Bernie M.," who suggested to me that we can solve the unemployment problem in the legal profession by opening dozens of new law schools that will employ as administrators and professors thousands of currently unemployed lawyers. These new law schools and thier multitude of graduates will have a ripple effect on the profession: more bar examiners/graders will be needed; more bar prep course; and an explosion of attorneys to handle the firestorm of malpractice and ethics violations cases these lawyers will generate -- you get the idea. Bernie says we should aim for 10,000 law schools by 2020. He's a real visionary.

NAMBLA is opening up a law school across the street from the new Cooley campus.

Will Cooley give out scholarships to 'mudpeople'?

12 makes a good point. Maybe we should petition to close the school?

How about a post re: Ave Maria moving to Naples?

Tom Monaghan makes Tom Cruise look sane.

WTF is "granted acquiescence"... isn't that an oxymoron?

or should I say, oxycooley

1st, there is no "relatively small fee" to attend Cooley, it's expensive. 2nd, a lot of people flunk out of Cooley each year. 3rd, all of the classmates I keep in touch with had jobs when they passed the bar, so yes they will be getting jobs as practicing attorneys. Lastly, if you want to be a journalist you should do research before writing your articles.

1st, there is no "relatively small fee" to attend Cooley, it's expensive. 2nd, a lot of people flunk out of Cooley each year. 3rd, all of the classmates I keep in touch with had jobs when they passed the bar, so yes they will be getting jobs as practicing attorneys. Lastly, if you want to be a journalist you should do research before writing your articles.

11

tyvmft

Now isn't it ironic that every Cooley grad that I know has a job and is an intelligent, functioning and contributing member to society, while other attorneys that graduated from so-called "better" schools are standing on the unemployment line dragging the economy further down the drain. Maybe these unemployed attorneys should apply for jobs at McDonalds (where Cooley grads apparently got their degrees) instead of taking tax dollars from Cooley graduates.

Newsweek Editor: "I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God."

Nope, no bias here!..... Now let's get to work on Newsweek's 18 Obama cover in 6 months....!

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2009/06/05/newsweek-s-evan-thomas-obama-sort-god

Why do you all care? If Cooley is such a crappy school, no one should be worried about competing with their graduates...

Elie,

If you are going to continue to trash TTT schools, please post your undergraduate GPA and LSAT score.

I want to see if you could have matriculated at HLS as a white male who grew up in a trailer park in southern Indiana.

You may have been able to, but let's just dispel any notion that people may have that your education is a product of racism (affirmative action).

I thought this post was pretty funny. Well done, Elie.

56 - so expensive + lots of flunkies + some sort of employment after graduation for survivors = good law school???? Wonderful logic, Cooley Grad.

No. 56.

Elie probably lost his job at Debevoise & Plimpton, is pissed off that Cooley graduates still have jobs, and now he's stuck blogging and pretending to be a real journalist.

If Mystal hadn't done very well at Harvard, he couldn't have gotten a job at Debevoise.

Allow comments on all posts Lat -- this desparate attempt to prop up dealbreaker is not that great.

I would bet all my worldly assets that Elie's LSAT/GPA didn't merit getting into Harvard. Elie, you may be educated, but that doesn't mean your smart.

I would bet all my worldly assets that Elie's LSAT/GPA didn't merit getting into Harvard. Elie, you may be educated, but that doesn't mean you're smart.

Mystal got into Harvard by letting the entire admissions office bukake his moobs.

67/68 What exactly does "merit getting into Harvard." I'm being serious here...if it were just LSAT/GPA then there wouldn't be an admissions department. All law schools look at the "whole" student.

You know what -- I'd bet all of my worldly assets that Elie totally got into Harvard on merit.

/Elie's Mom

MysTTTal, please provide your UG GPA/LSAT stats to prove that you wouldnt have ended up at Cooley

you disgusting piece of lard

If you want a whipping boy, blame the banks that will make 100K law school loans to college grads with little to no debt history, or with huge amounts of college debt already accumulated. Not the law schools themselves.

63, I never commented on how "good" of a law school Cooley is, you look at their stats and they're great, you look at other rankings and they are nothing special. My point, and only point in posting my comment, is that the author wrote a bad article that has inaccurate facts. I guess your reading comprehension is not that great, just like the authors research. 56

72, banks make those loans because they're guaranteed by the federal government, where the Democrats believe education is some sort of fundamental right and will provide all sorts of subsidies to make education more "affordable."
Change we can believe in.

"Why do you all care? If Cooley is such a crappy school, no one should be worried about competing with their graduates... "

Have you considered the possibility that people are bothered by things that don't negatively affect them personally?

74 is right! It's Obama's fault that there are so many law schools!

These Democrats are so stupid... it's almost as though they think that making quality education widely available will result in the U.S. having a more skilled and better educated workforce which would provide us with a huge competitive edge in the global marketplace.

Like liberal-elite SOCIALISTS would, they are using the historical fact that the post WWII GI Bill education benefits provided the skilled and educated workforce that was the engine of the largest sustained period of economic growth in the nation's history.

Fuckin' liberals and their arugula eatin' facts! Don't they know we're calling people SOOOOCIALIST and having John Boehner release budgets without any numbers? Oh, yeah, the Grand OLD Party is back in a big way, and we're not taking any prisoners! Electoral success is right around the corner with a solid party platform like this.

Fuckin' change.

By now most of you peons know I don't hold back when being candid. Regarding Thomas Cooley all I can say is my firm has never hired a graduate from this institution. A Thomas Cooley grad is not even qualified to clean the toilets at the firm. It is mind blowing to know that the ABA granted accreditation to this "school" in the first place. I think it is criminal what this school is doing to their students, charging them an exorbitant amount of money for a subpar legal education. However, as a businessman, Thomas Cooley is run like a sound profitable machine. And as long as there are fools who are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a worthless degree, this school will remain in business for years to come.

The ship be sinking...

76, this thread is kinda about the excess of so-called "education" available for wanna-be lawyers.

Nice straw man argument. There is a bit of difference between a tuition scholarship for veterans, and a subsidized student loan so that a 150 LSAT student can borrow $40,000 a year to go to Cooley.

79,

Yes, and your point about how the Obama administration (established 5 months ago) is responsible for the excess of lawyers is rational and very sensical.

-76

80, Obama is not the only Democrat in the United States. Shocking, I know. He merely furthered the process with additional subsidies.

I am sure that once Elie "proves" that he got into Harvard based on "merit," you guys (as in 61, 67, 68, 70, and 71) will then post incessantly about the racial inequalities of the criminal justice system or the glass ceiling for Asians in leadership positions.

I also wait with baited breath for your planned diatribes about housing discrimination. You guys are almost into fairness and equality too much!!!

Well we know where to go to hire process servers. Actually, with the newest and least of the Cooley schools, that might be setting the bar a little high. Janitors might be more realistic of a career for those poor deluded saps.

If a female grad of that school does turn out to have a modicum of legal skill, they could make a movie about her -- Bad Faith Defaulting.

81,

Oh, see, I could have sworn that "Change we can believe in" was Obama's slogan.

I guess rather than reacting to what you actually said, I should have anticipated your post-hoc revisions.

Still, your underlying point is sound. Democrats think that education should be widely available. Since the Democrats increased Pell grants and passed the new GI Bill, I guess we'll get a chance to see how the electorate responds.

I'm sure you're right and people will rise up against education spending.

Of course, in 74 you were against the federal government insuring student loans. Now that you've been called on how moronic your bullshit position is, I suppose you'll post-hoc revise your statement to now only be against the giving of $40k loans to go to Cooley? Oh, I suppose you've already done that in post 79.

Seems like you've revised and walked back your initial comment to the point where I can now agree with you. Yes, it does seem like poor lending practices to lend large sums to people going to Cooley.

Glad to have helped you arrive at a sensical position.

82, Martin Luther King never talked about how the immigration system discriminated against Asians in the 1960s, so I guess he's not into fairness and equality too much.

But I, in contrast, promise to talk about those issues you mentioned. So what's Elie's LSAT and GPA?

@24 - haaaahahhaaaaaa

Granting that 54 might have a point, is this really the kind of standard that the ABA should be using to accredit law schools?

"We won't take affirmative steps to keep you from opening your doors to educate the bottom 25% of LSAT takers"....I'm not even that bright and I went to a top 20 school!

84, yes, like I said, Obama is continuing the Democrats' process of subsidizing student loans. Why is this so hard to understand?
This subsidy, through the government insuring loans, leads lenders to loan to any student regardless of student quality or potential. An unsubsidized student loan market would not lend money, at least at low interest rates, to Cooley students. In other words, the government subsidy of education is what is driving loans to Cooley students, who are screwed when they learn their repayment plans.

And like I said, there is a difference between grants and loans, so nice straw man argument.

88,

Absolutely, your argument is very sound and will garner many votes.

We should end student loan subsidies so that poor people can't go to school. Because that is what you are arguing. Education availability for the wealthy, but the poor need to have a co-signer, pay prohibitive interest, and probably can't even get a loan.

I'm a fool for disagreeing with this utopia you lay out.

End subsidies of student loans? Seriously, are you retarded? Students have basically no assets to speak of, and no income to speak of, and you want them to be subject to stringent lending standards the same as a business?

What you are proposing makes education only available to the rich, and it decimates the number of U.S. degrees. This puts our workforce and businesses at a huge disadvantage and kills our competitiveness in the global marketplace.

You say it's easy to understand... ok, go aheand and paint me a picture where ending the student loan subsidy is a good thing for America.

Please, enlighten us.

Also, a grant is MORE of a subsidy than the loan program. Therefore, the subject of government provided grants (free money for people to go to any school, even Cooley) should be an even stronger point for your side, not a "straw man" that I'm constructing.

Do you even know what the phrase "straw man argument" means?

89, you really need to stop with the straw man arguments and banal populist appeals. Who said all the subsidies will end? How about merit-based lending and subsidies accordingly, instead of universally available student loans, which means that the Democrats need to give up this claim that education is a "fundamental right" and everyone should be able to get any worthless degree they feel like?
Unfortunately, this policy would be considered racist by Democrats and liberals, since it disproportionately impacts blacks and Hispanics. Just like how the ABA was considered racist for trying to raise the bar passage threshold for accrediting law schools, which would adversely affect several minority-heavy law schools.

Also, a grant is MORE of a subsidy than the loan program. Therefore, the subject of government provided grants (free money for people to go to any school, even Cooley) should be an even stronger point for your side, not a "straw man" that I'm constructing.

Do you even know what the phrase "straw man argument" means?

Oh, see up until now you've kept mentioning the federal guarantee of student loans (which, would be basically the entire student loan subsidy).

Now you've shifted your position to only be against Democratic subsidies over and above some as yet unspecified acceptable level of subsidies? Care to admit that you have once again shifted/revised your position, or would you still like to try and paint that picture where ending the federal guarantee of student loans is a good thing for America?

Also, please look up the phrase 'logical consistency'.

(even with your rampant penchant for post-hoc revisions, you're getting schooled in this argument. You've had to shift/revise each of your positions, you still haven't provided any rationale for ending the federal guarantee of student loans... pretty much your sole tactic has been to repeat the phrase "straw man" over and over)

I doubt the University of Michigan is serving the state very well. How many of those publicly subsidized legal educations opt to stay in detroit? I figure very few.

93, no the criticism has always been the existing system of government subsidy of student loans, based on any type of education being a fundamental right.

Did someone use the term "baited breath" above....yeeesh.

UGH, pretentious much? Get over yourself, Elie.

Lol I get this picture 93/89/etc is a patronizing little high school student living in his mom's basement, getting off on making pathetically off-base "gotcha" arguments on the Internet. He must be a blast at parties.

From your initial post 74 -

"banks make those loans because they're guaranteed by the federal government, where the Democrats believe education is some sort of fundamental right and will provide all sorts of subsidies to make education more "affordable."
Change we can believe in."

__________

Once again, paint that picture where ending the federal guarantee of student loans is a good thing for America.

Otherwise, it seems your point has now devolved to "actually, I'm not against a federal guarantee of student loans, I'm against the motive for that guarantee being that education is a fundamental right, rather I think the guarantee should be provided based on a different motive"

If you'd like to offer a different interpretation of your own words, I'm all ears.

(are you really dumb enough to think you can post-hoc revise your words when your words are published comments immediately above your latest words? The mind boggles...)

98 = the pathetic guy that doesn't know anything about education funding has had to resort to ad-hoc attacks.

Nice debating skills ass clown. I hope you're a law student and not an actual lawyer. Your argument consisted of no clear position, constant post-hoc revisions, an admission that school subsidies are necessary, and basic failure to respond to any of my arguments culminating in a very tired (and not at all funny) "mom's basement" joke.

Seriously dude, if you can't hold your own in a debate at least come up with an original/mildly amusing ad-hoc attack. Mom's basement? That's the best you have?

*Yawn*

post hoc revisions vs. strawman

99, the statement shows that I am against the existing system, which is premised on a notion that the government should subsidized every single degree, and suggests that I am in favor of a system that is not premised on such a notion, such as a more limited subsidy system.

It's interesting that you have stopped engaging my substantive points and proposals, and can only resort to ad hominem attacks and finding contradictions in my posts. Okay, let's say my original post was ambiguous. Happy now?

Again, I don't think you even know what a straw man is.

You came out against subsidized loans, yet me invoking flat-out free money in the form of grants is a straw man?

See, a straw man is when person A comes up with a purposely weak version of Person B's argument and then defeats it.

So, me providing you the opportunity to argue about flat-out free money, in addition to subsidized loans, is not me constructing a straw man. That terrain should have been more favorable to YOU.

That's not a straw man, that's you making a moronic point, and me providing you with additional and more favorable terrain and still beating you.

That is hilarious. You don't even know what a straw man is. You are a joke.

103, ok so it's not a "straw man," just an off-topic argument. The student loan guarantees are much more effective at getting people to go to Cooley than the grants, especially the GI Bill ones from 50 years ago. I used the wrong term and you won the semantic debate, great job.

P.S. 98 is not me.

102,

No, that doesn't make sense. Post 74 clearly lays out your position and says "banks make those loans because they are guaranteed by the federal government, where the Democrats believe education is some sort of fundamental right"

The only interpretation of that is that it is a statement against the guarantee for student loans.

Your post wasn't ambiguous.

If you like, we can agree that your first several posts were you making WAAAY overbroad and off-the-cuff statements that don't hold up to scrutiny, but, notwithstanding your retarded entre into the debate, you believe there should be less subsidies for education than their currently are.

If that is your position, and (as many do on internet blogs) you started off by making that position in a provocative and not necessarily well thought out way, then you are not so retarded as I might have thought and we merely have a difference of opinion.

104,

That doesn't make sense either. A person with a Pell grant gets to choose which school they go to and use that grant same as with a student loan. Why is a subsidized loan more effective at sending people to Cooley than a grant?

I think the argument you are groping for is that you would prefer it if the government only funded loans for schools and degrees deemed worthy enough...? Is that your point?

106, the grants are much smaller in amount and have less effect than a subsidized loan.

105, no it's a position against the availability of student loans to people at law schools such as Cooley, which is what this thread and 72 (to which 74 responded) was talking about.
But ok, let's say you've proved that my first post was saying I'm against all student loans. I clarified that's not the case. You win the great "let's show some blog commenter made contradictory statements" debate.

107,

In post 84 I asked you whether you had shifted your point to simply being against loans to people going to schools you don't like such as Cooley...

*sigh*

So desperate to bash Democrats that you never even figured out what your own point was in the debate. I had to do it for you (and 25 comments before you realized it).

Seriously, you are a joke. Just a joke.

Well, I need to go do anything else other than this. Have a nice life.

In 107 "student loans" is a typo and should say "subsidized student loans", in case our "post hoc revisions" Nazi grows too concerned.

Ahhh, moving on to a new tactic - false equivalency

Me forgetting a word is the same as you abandoning your entire premise?

Seriously, you are a joke. This is like arguing with a petulant toddler.

Would you like to try another post-hoc attack? That Mom's basement crack really stung. Did you think of that yourself?

"Why do you all care? If Cooley is such a crappy school, no one should be worried about competing with their graduates... "

Assface, the reason people care is because Cooley is screwing those students. Those people actually think getting that degree will lead to something.

Cooley is the law equivalent of those beauty schools you see everywhere, promising young gals a "career" in the world of "fashion". Barf. Fraud.

I'd rather take 12K graduates from Cooley Law over 300 broken minds from AVE MARIA. AM = the real scandal, i.e., "policy think tanks" masquerading at law schools. From Wikipedia:

"In 1998, several professors left University of Detroit Mercy School of Law after a dispute regarding the invitation of a pro-choice Michigan Supreme Court justice to give the oath at the end of the school's Red Mass, providing a core faculty [for AVE MARIA LAW]. With the financial support of Monaghan, Dobranski was recruited to serve as dean. The school currently has twenty-one professors including Robert Bork, one visiting professor, and six legal writing lecturers.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia assisted Ave Maria's leadership in developing the school's curriculum, and in 1999 Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the school's first annual Ave Maria Lecture."

Of course, we wouldn't want the anti-abortion lobby and criminal defendants like Scott Roeder to be denied fair & balanced legal rep, would we?

Um 110, I was correcting my own post. I suppose 98 was right on one point, you must be a real blast at parties.

This country needs more lawyers because the current supply-demand dynamic puts the fees charged for legal services outside the reach of most Americans.

As a student as Michigan Law, I welcome this development.

Cooley will fill a void in Ann Arbor that Ave Maria was unable to. Last week, it took over an hour for my pizza to be delivered, and later that night, the bar at Rick's was critically understaffed. I am looking forward to the influx of menial laborers that Cooley's arrival will bring to remedy these problems.

Ave Maria is not irrelevant - just ask anyone who travels to UVA for the annual softball tournament every April.

Ave Marie places a lot of federal clerks actually.

Man, Elie, you are a fucking asshole.

I don't understand how anyone can criticize Elie's comments on this subject. One should have to have an minimum set of academic credentials to get into law school, and we as lawyers absolutely have to do something to prevent the further dilution of our profession. It is beyond me how each year more and more law schools get accredation, despite the fact that NOONE can get a job right now. Actually, if I just graduated at the top of my class from the best school in the state, and still can't get a job, I don't know how these people expect to ever be employed in the legal profession. The ABA is a fu**king JOKE.

@117:

I believe you. Someone's gotta work the register at the courthouse cafeteria.

Yeah! The ABA sure isn't doing enough to impose anti-competitive restraints on trade. They should use their power to impose high entry barriers on the legal profession so as to increase costs on consumers of legal services! Am I the only one here who took an antitrust class?

119--the problem is that he doesn't have to be such a douche about it. Maybe Elie got into Harvard and got a good job because he's really smart. Or maybe because he's black. Who cares, it doesn't matter. But he had the privilege of going to law school at one of the best places in the country and of interviewing with the best firms in the country. If some kid wants to go to Cooley and then actually work at a small firm in some crap-hole town in Michigan, I feel sorry for him, but that's his choice. He's not going to compete for the same sorts of jobs as Elie and the other kids from T-14 schools do anyway, so why does Elie have to insist on making fun? The post could have just said "Cooley is opening another campus. Probably a bad idea since there are too many lawyers right now." He didn't need to call it "irrelevant" and imply that most everyone who goes there is a moron. He's a blogger and should get over himself.

Michigan should be lucky that people even want to live there

Seriously Cooley, why? You're creating more lawyers, thus making the market even more saturated, therefore increasing the odds that your own students won't be able to find employment. Makes no sense.

All the TTT students/alums flooding this thread defending their shitty law schools is further proof there are way too many lawyers already.

124 - The high cost of legal services still remains beyond the reach of most Americans. From the perspective of the American consumer, the market is not saturated. I realize this blog is slanted toward lawyers, but you would do well to appreciate the impact that high legal fees are having on other members of society.

HA! Silly American's and your "free market".

We socialist Canadians have only 19 law schools, government restricted numbers.

If you reduce supply......

When you ask a Cooley grad where they went to law school, they say "Michigan." I have had this happen at least two or three times. I think on the first day of orientation they tell the 1L's they need to start thinking like lawyers, and use this as an example of literally answering questions.

This lesson is needed, of course. If you pass out law degrees to people who scored a 138 on the LSAT and had to draw a picture of a turtle to get into the school, you gotta teach em to fucking lie about where they went to school!

Now they can perpetuate the lie, and tell people how much they loved studying in Ann Arbor.

Blame the ABA Accreditation Committee: http://www.abanet.org/legaled/committees/comaccredit.html

121 - right on. It's not only anti-trust, it's also an access to justice issue from people who want to make law more like an exclusionary medieval guild.

So for me both right-wing free market and left-wing fairness principles support my view that there should not be artificial limits placed on legal education. If -- IF -- there should be limits on practicing attorneys, let state governments impose them (I don't think they should and haven't thought about whether legally they could, but if any entity is to impose limits, it should be government not the ABA).

I have some issues with ABA accreditation, but leaving that aside, it should only be looking at whether a school meets its standards. NOT considering "oh, we have too many lawyers, no accreditation for you".

There aren't too many lawyers. There are too many people who feel forced to try and earn a lot in law, because of the artificially high cost of law degrees (with student funding available and applicants still not aware of the true state of legal employment, law schools can charge ridiculous amounts because the supply and demand situation is artificially distorted).

A few years ago, I represented my firm at a job fair. I interviewed a fairly attractive yet dumb gal who graduated from Cooley. We went out for drinks and then wound up at the W. She got an A+ for her skill set in the sack (she did it ALL). She did not get an offer from the firm but I will never forget that night at the W.

Cooley should (or maybe does) teach courses in sucking dick for coke because most of its grads will spend more time doing that than practicing law.

Elie - You don't know what "parody" means. Parody would be if you came up with a story that mimicked the original, but with humorous undertones (or overt ones). You'd think an elitist prick would know definitions of words.

You mean sarcasm.

As a county law librarian, I work mainly with solo, small law firm lawyers and self-representing litigants.

I feel sorry for the law firm librarians affected.

But daily, I work with many lower/mid-classes people who can not find/afford legal representation. Overall, county law libraries in California does a good job at empowering people. But just like giving people a wrench doesn't make them auto mechanic, giving people access to legal information is still far from giving them actual representation.

Isn't it funny how lawyers complains about not having jobs, while many people are complaining about not able to find lawyers to represent them?

— Toshokan Kanchou, California

http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2009/06/07/nyregion/07law.html?permid=135#comment135

Kanchousan,

No one is going to take on a whole case for the $150 that a lower/mid-class person can afford to pay the attorney. In the amount of time they would have to put into the case the attorney could have made more working at McDonalds. That's the problem!

I would bet all my worldly assets that Elie's LSAT/GPA didn't merit getting into Harvard. Elie, you may be educated, but that doesn't mean you're smart.

121, 126, etc.:

I understand the plight of the less-fortunate and the burden of obtaining legal services. However, there are already so many lawyers and yes, there is complete market saturation. For example, most small firm lawyers only make enough $ to support a modest living. Do a Google search and take a look at the "average" salary for a small-town lawyer. These statistics show that legal fees just can't go any lower than they already are (I'm talking about the lower end of the spectrum of course).

And while its true that there is no need to criticize any particular school - I'm sure there are plenty of intelligent and capable Cooley grads - the ABA does need to impose meaningful barriers on entry by decreasing the # of accredited schools. If you want to become a Dr., but you have really low MCAT scores and a terrible GPA, you CANNOT GET INTO MEDICAL SCHOOL. If you want to be a lawyer, you can just go to any one of a million T3, T4, T1000 schools..

How can you all be so short sighted? UPenn opened up various campuses (Philly, Happy Valley, etc.) and it seems to be working well for them.

How can you all be so short sighted? UPenn opened up various campuses (Philly, Happy Valley, etc.) and it seems to be working well for them.

How can you all be so short sighted? UPenn opened up various campuses (Philly, Happy Valley, etc.) and it seems to be working well for them.

134,

"I work with many lower/mid-classes people who can not find/afford legal representation. Overall, county law libraries in California does a good job at empowering people. But just like giving people a wrench doesn't make them auto mechanic, giving people access to legal information is still far from giving them actual representation.

Isn't it funny how lawyers complains about not having jobs, while many people are complaining about not able to find lawyers to represent them?"

As an attorney who uses public law facilities in various locations around the country, I know those people you sniffle over. They are typically whining mooches hoping to get something for nothing. They always wander up to me and try and convince me they have been so, so wronged. After about two minutes, it is pretty easy to see what their angle is: money. Either from me or, more rarely, someone they think threats of lawsuit will scare into paying up.

Yes, there are plenty of people with consumer credit card debt, child custody disputes with the ex-spouse, and questions about some bullshit worker's comp claim. None of those disputes will support a lawyer's family if he tries to "help" that person, though. And since other people aren't working for free to solve the lawyer's problems, I fail to see why the lawyer is obligated to work for free to solve someone's else's.

More significantly, those "problems" are really a mooch's distaste for the the law's intended results. So that guy should pay his credit card bills, accept that his ex-spouse likely got the kids for a good reason, and quit malingering over some BS workers' comp claim, hoping to get some extra $ for nothing.

As for you, you presume to lecture attorneys who actually have dealt with real life legal matters. And any attorney who has practiced in a real setting knows shiftless con men like those buzzing around your librarian station. Waste. of. time.

But hey, feel free to go to law school, rack up big debt, and then donate all your time to helping those guys. Seriously. Go for it. Apparently people like me have an obligation to do that, so you can show me by example.

Asshole.

"124 - The high cost of legal services still remains beyond the reach of most Americans. From the perspective of the American consumer, the market is not saturated. I realize this blog is slanted toward lawyers, but you would do well to appreciate the impact that high legal fees are having on other members of society."

To restate the point just made, most people's "legal problems" at the lower end are really just distaste for the consequences of their choices. It is not a legal problem when your house is being foreclosed on, it is a I-don't-have-the-money-to-pay-my-mortgage problem. Losing the house is what is SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN! Involving a lawyer to help the indigent person is a waste of money and time.

Most custody disputes, collection actions, etc. experienced by people without money all fall into that same category. People married the wrong person, ran up debt, etc. and now don't like the bad consequences of such decisions. "I need a lawyer!", they cry.

No, you need to stop f-cking up your life, and then hoping some guy with a law degree will help you avoid consequences of said f-cking.

I wish Cooley well in it's new endeavor.

Hofstra's Texas Branch (SMU) is doing very well and Cooley should have similar success.

HELLO PEOPLE!

It is not that hard to be a lawyer!

You just need average intelligence!

We are not practicing brain surgery!

Get over yourselves!

Law is not difficult, science is!

I am not that smart and I have a law degree from a good school and work at a V50 on big litigation!

My wife is a doctor, they are much smarter!

Dear 144

Clearly not if she married you. Then again her options may have been limited more by her obesity and lack of attractiveness and good personal hygeine than by a lack of intelligence.

144 - It's usually hard work to be a lawyer, and for some areas of law are more intellectually rigorous than others, and I disagree that any particular medical doctor or the average MD is necessarily smarter than me, but otherwise agree with your points...[grin]

Sorry buddy, but if you got into a good school and can handle complex litigation, then you are a little above "average" intelligence. Stating to the contrary is, well, stupid! I'm not disputing that your wife is smarter than you, nor that some of my good doctor friends are smarter than me. However, I refuse to believe that someone with a 2.5 undergrad GPA and a 140 LSAT score has the intellectual capacity or work ethic to be an attorney, especially at a V50 firm. I know people like that, from college and I damn well would not want them working with me on an important case.

147 - if someone with a 2.5 GPA and 140 LSAT score has the intellectual capacity and work ethic to get through law school and then study hard and pass e.g. the California or New York bar, that person probably has the intellectual capacity and work ethic to be an attorney.

Law schools and state bars should not be limiting the practice of law to those capable of working at V50 firms (I'm somewhat skeptical about the abilities of some V50 lawyers anyway, but that's a separate matter).

I can think of some lawyers at large firms who had good marks and LSAT scores and good law school marks from a good law school who I wouldn't want working with me on an important case either. So what?

This underscores the need for the creation of a Tier 5!

Cooley Law School is one example that SHOULD be unaccredited by the ABA. Or, perhaps, the ABA shouldn't have ever given in to Cooley when it wanted to open the Grand Rapids campus. Cooley is a private school operating on a for-profit model; the "founder/owner" of the school started it to get rich, and the original board for the school are multi-millionaires several times over because of their "business model."
This is one example of legal education NOT existing for the benefit of the public or the consumers of the legal education. This is why the ABA shouldn't be allowing these types of schools to gain accredited status.
Not to mention that Cooley grads have a horrible rep in Michigan, a state that hardly needs any more lawyers. Most lawyers in Michigan are unemployed already; who needs more TTT lawyers??? Awful. Cooley needs to be stopped.

49 - I agree with your friend "Bernie" -- build a ponzi-like pyramid of ever increasing numbers of law schools to employ each new class of law grads. Brilliant. Congrats to Cooley for taking the lead on this.

150 - Who cares if it's for profit or has a horrible reputation in Michigan?

So long as its legal education is adequate to earn ABA accreditation, profit motive or reputation is irrelevant. Take a hypothetical private for-profit law school whose admission standards and facilities and quality of graduates was the equal of any current T1 law school (i.e., not Cooley...) but for whatever reason it had a bad reputation in its home state. The ABA should deny accreditation because of the profit motive and poor reputation? NO.

If a for-profit college turns out unneeded history or political science or whatever graduates, does that mean it shouldn't be accredited by the relevant college accreditation groups merely for that reason? No.

As a Cooley grad, I have argued for years that the opening of multiple branches destroys the credibility of my school. I think Cooley is a business and is more concerned with making money than producing good grads. However, this author’s statement claiming that "replacing one largely irrelevant law school with another" is very insulting to me. Only an elitist snooty brat would make such a comment.

I worked very hard at Cooley and studied my a-- off to pass the BAR exam. I hardly obtained my degree at my "local McDonald's" and don’t feel that my school, or its grads, are “irrelevant.”

In addition to my self, I know plenty of Cooley grads in Chicago who are doing well.

I am a graduate of The Thomas M Cooley Law School. I possessed high academic credentials prior to entering law school. I entered Cooley because of the scholarship I received as well as the tough program offered. I am not jobless. In fact, I am a solo practitioner, in Ann Arbor. I came out of Cooley competent and fearless. I cannot say the same for many of my colleagues from the so-called better schools. Your rant is ingnorant and shows you to be a complete loser. Enjoy shopping K-Mart. My Cooley J.D. takes me to Neiman Marcus.

I am a graduate of The Thomas M Cooley Law School. I possessed high academic credentials prior to entering law school. I entered Cooley because of the scholarship I received as well as the tough program offered. I am not jobless. In fact, I am a solo practitioner, in Ann Arbor. I came out of Cooley competent and fearless. I cannot say the same for many of my colleagues from the so-called better schools. Your rant is ignorant and shows you to be a complete loser. Enjoy shopping K-Mart. My Cooley J.D. takes me to Neiman Marcus.

Oh, just out of curiosity - where did you attend law school, which states are you licensed to practice in and how much do you make? And, have you actually made a difference for someone as a lawyer? Yeah, I know. Better not to answer.

@55....Seeing as the Auburn Hills Cooley Campus is 10mins from Great Lakes Crossing Outlet Mall.....I imagine your Cooley J.D. does take you shopping at the Neiman Marcus clearance store there.

Let's be real....Cooley is a piss poor school! The profs are pissed because once they sign on the dotted line it's officially the death of their career. The students are pissed because they are sitting next to a former sideshow circus freak on the left, and a nwo militia man on the right....both of which will be fellow alumni......... They've never even heard of summer associate positions......and most of the administration on the website looks like they drug them out of a trailer, through some polyester on them, and called them an education professional...i.e. I believe they are the welfare to work participants from northern michigan,

Lastly, Cooley's president, the esteemed Don LeDuc, has been battling a class action lawsuit for allegations of civil rights violations since 1989.......which includes losing twice and appealing twice......

So yes #55 please enjoy your Cooley J.D. and your 2005 Christian Louboutin's from the NM Last Call outlet next door to 'esteemed law school'!

Cooley's last BAR exam results in MI were the second highest in the state at nearly 80% . The school is doing somthing right when there are over 200 BAR applicants and 8 out of 10 pass.