First!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The ship be sinking...

In fairness, tuition itself is "only" 47k. Health insurance kicks it over the 50 mark.

Federally Socialized Medicine, Now!!

Only in California does it cost more to attend a public institution than a private one. UC Hastings students should abandon their legal studies immediately. The school is not noteworthy and the pricetag borders on criminal pricing speculation. Moreover, (not that I would ever consider a UC Hastings graduate for employment) why would anyone hire someone who was not savvy enough to avoid getting duped into paying so much for a worthless degree?

*sigh*

I would have paid it.

- Cardozo 2L

Mission Accomplished!

Time to transfer!

why in this day and age would anyone in their right mind pay anything (let alone that sum of money) to attend law school?

easy solution -- transfer to Stanford if already at Hastings, or get into SLS.

I graduated from down the 880 freeway at Santa Clara, and we had at least 6-8 transfers every semester from UC Hastings that were disgusted at the way they were treated. Zero access to professors, all the staff are state employees so they're about as helpful as the DMV.

I was going to a concert last year at the Great American Music Hall and had to step around a shooting gallery where a bunch of junkies had crowbarred a used syringe receptacle off a bathroom somewhere and where shooting up *on the sidewalk in plain view*. This was the sidewalk that led up to UC Hasting's law library.

Now you have the privilege of paying 50K if you're out of state? fantastic.

Glad the shithole wait-listed me. I laughed all the way to UCLA over, it actually.

If you practice outside federal court in California (which I admit may make you TTT), you can't ignore Hastings. More California state court judges are from Hastings than any other school. First law school west of the Mississippi. Was a T20 school for a long time.

So sad. Tuition was around $10k when I started.

-05 Hastings grad who won't touch state court with a 10-foot pole.

I'd be curious to know the employment rate and average salary of 2009's Hastings grads. Elie, how about it?

Seems like this should be in the calculus of whether someone still wants to pay $50k/year for tuition alone to go to a 2nd tier school....

6 = Fordham student/alumnus jealous of Cardozo's recent success

FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!FUCK THE ABA!

This is beyond ridiculous. Shame on all these fucking law schools that charge and arm and a leg to enroll in law school when the job prospects are extremely limited. And of course, shame on the ABA - the most useless organization in the history of organizations. 16 said it best.

Hastings used to be a top school (T25), but has declined since. Paying $40,000 in-state tuition to attend a school bordering Tier 2 in a saturated market is suicide.

I applied to Hastings way back when (mid 1990s) and when I went in to talk to the admissions people I was told that while my LSAT and grades were in the range for admission on average, because I am a white male I would likely not be admitted (I would have needed much higher grades/LSAT to get one of the white male slots). They encouraged me to apply elsewhere, which I did.

While I'm sure that Elie adores my story, it gave me a serious dislike for Hastings. Fuck them and the morons who pay $50k a year to attend that TTT to be.

$150,000 to graduate unemployed. In what other area can you charge so much for so little?

And here I thought the modern trend of law schools jacking tuition by *only* $3,000 - $4,000 each year was absurd.

Nearly $7,000 at this place? Are you kidding?

#13. Did it ever occur to you that Hastings has the most state court judges in California because it gives 400-500 J.D.s each year?

19: You'll be happy to hear times haven't changed. A few years ago, the wait list at Hastings was affectionately referred to as the white list.

BUT SEE: The UC regents are in a lawsuit, defending the granting of in-state tuition rates to ILLEGAL ALIENS.

So if you're part of the same country, say from Nevada, you pay MUCH more than a person from across the Pacific who is openly violating our laws.

Makes sense.... to a liberal.

19, do you live in Louisiana now? Because I think I know you.

Only $22,000 at Southwestern, baby! Still, I'm happy I get Jerry Maguire residuals. SHOW ME THE MONEY!

Lolz.

I thought Berkeley was already at 50k or at least already well on its way to being there (49k and rising).

Related? http://sfappeal.com/news/2009/06/guvs-proposed-cuts-terminates-all-uc-hastingss-state-funding.php

The comments at 16 & 17 caused me to wonder whether the University of California Hastings College of the Law is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member in good standing of the Association of American Law Schools. Does anyone know the answer to this question?

can anyone (like #13) explain the decline of Hastings? I practice in the Bay Area and always hear people speak of Hastings' past glory and how it was really respected back in the day (like the 1970s).

What lead to the decline? Was it just reduced funding from the state?

Serious responses welcome.

State funding dropped from 50% in 2000 to 17% today. With tuition rising much faster than inflation over the last 10 years, I wonder if state funding has really declined, or just not increased as fast as tuition? If tuition was $13,000 in 2000, then CA's share was $6,500. If tuition is now $39,000, 17% of $39K is $6,630. I am guessing what tuition was in 2000. Anybody know the figure?

This whole state is f*cked; why should Hastings be any different?

Out of state 1Ls: get those transfer applications ready...

Probably lower than $13k. I know a couple people who graudated from UCLA (tuition at the two schools has historically been about the same) around 2001-2003, and I seem to recall them saying their tuition was about $11k.

PARTNER EMERITUS IS A FRAUD!!!!!!

He is a student at Fordham and he drives a beat up old Honda Accord, not a Maybach. He would be lucky to be accepted at Hastings...

25-

No, I live in California. The great part about being dinged from Hastings for being a white male is that I had paid tons of money into the UC system as a taxpayer of this state and then I couldn't even get the benefit of the system when I went to law school.

19

i suppose i should know this, but is UC-Hastings a ABA-accredited law school?

No wonder the former dean of Hastings, a Hastings graduate herself, left for a T25 (Notre Dame)

19/36 --

Cool. I'm a Californian myself and a buddy of mine (since moved to Louisiana) had the EXACT same experience -- the rejection letter said that his grades and scores were at the right levels, but because he was a white male he would not be admitted.

But now that I think of it, this was for the undergrad campus... and maybe UCLA. All the same, though.

- 25

29 & 37--the shtick is old. No longer funny. Move on.

I will defend Hastings (and the UC)

1 - Hastings is not a bad school. Granted it has its shortcomings, but its a good law school, with great faculty/students/exposure to the law.

2 - The hike has been in the works for a while and the other UCs will be on par not before long. I believe UCLA/Boalt/Davis will all be between 39 and 43 K within a couple of years. This move was planned b/c of the deminishing state funding.

3 - Hastings "public" law school status is fading quickly. This year Hastings initially got $0 from the state and had to lobby to get 900K - measly.

4 - For the person who asked about the "deline" of Hastings. I could give you some reasons, but the bottom line is $$$.

I guess it would be tacky to mention all of the partners in well-regarded SF and LA firms (doing quite well thank you) who paid $1,500/year in the 70s to get their ticket punched.

I will not defend California

1 - As a Californian, I see firsthand how the idiot libs running our state are doing everything in their power to run the taxpayers (i.e. middle class white folk) and business owners out of the state.

2 - They are simultaneously encouraging mass illegal immigration which is nothing more than low-wage poverty (i.e. a population that demands more unpaid services but pays next to nothing into taxes).

3 - The result is that California is moving to the feudal state system which only caters to the extremely wealthy Malibu beach types and the extremely poor.

Taxes will continue to rise until it becomes like Mexico: billionaires and extreme poverty.

This isn't politics; it's the sad truth.

For many years Hastings faculty was made up of retired name faculty from top schools. That changed by the 80s, and it has been downhill ever since

can u please put together a list of the schools with the top 20 tuitions. i'm sure the information is somewhere on the internet but I am too lazy to search for it. plus, my web rotation consists only of cnn.com, espn.com, this shitty website and porn.

If funding is the issue, Hastings would appear to have two choices: rein in costs, or pass them on to the students. Since Hastings probably thinks doing the former will probably hurt their (already apparently declining) reputation and ability to get good profs, they do the latter. There's only one option: don't go to Hastings.

But the school doesn't have to worry about a lack of students willing to pay. Even with all the piece-of-s*** law schools in this country, the supply of what they offer - upward social mobility through professional education - outstrips demand. Doesn't matter what it costs, somebody will look at the risks and believe they are worth it, and of those many will be wrong. Nonetheless, the school will do its level best to make all of its incomings believe that they have made the right choice.

The federal government, thirty years behind the times as usual, enables this process with cheap school loans, but of course the risk still rests with the students, because the loans cannot be discharged, ever. But hey, you already went to college, you're supposed to know how this all works already.

@38
Seems like the former dean may have been one of the reasons for "the decline."

43 - +1, dead on.

...Whereas the University of Baltimore's School of Law* costs the following:

Full-Time In-State tuition plus fees per semester = $11,996.00

California's travesty is not the blight of every state.

Baltimore city's public law school may not be nationally ranked but, for $25K a year (excluding need-based financial aid), it is far from a slouch.

Maryland State governors, mayors, state senators, comptrollers and first ladies have all taken their law degrees from UB.

Eleven of my writing, editing, Classical Literature, or Rhetoric students are graduates or current enrollees in the program.

And let's not forget, as of 2009, Maryland actually remains the richest state in the USA. Yes, that's right:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bal-md.census23sep23,0,1381021.story

In an age when an Ivy League degree does not assure anyone employment or prestige like it may have used to, expensive law schools be damned!

Quality, flexibility, and affordability are all you need.

* I am not affiliated with UB's Law School.

This is unbelievable.

The world really has taken a big dump on people ages 18-26. As few as 10 years ago, tuition was half of this.

And now the baby boomer deans, administrators and professors rip us off with these unbelievable tuition costs to pay their ever-increasing tenured salaries knowing full well that there are far less jobs to be had at the other end....

Someone please tell me why aren't we rioting in the streets??

California be sinking.

#50 -- if you know someone who can't find a job or is being forced out of school because of tuition increases, tell them to join Cindy Sheehan in Washington DC next spring. A massive peace demonstration is in the works.

I'm not trying to be a fucking asshole here, but if you can't get more than 2 questions right on each of the games on the LSAT, maybe you shouldn't be going into law school in the first place? Maybe Teach for America or something???

12 - Work on your punctuation. I'll give UCLA the benefit of the doubt in assuming that you won't graduate without dramatically improving your grammar skills.

From Prof. Bainbridge at UCLA -- he was apparently tricked into thinking everything is swell in Cali...

http://www.professorbainbridge.com/professorbainbridgecom/2009/10/staying-put.html

This is the extreme, especially for a public school, but really not as far away from everybody else as people may realize.

For everybody who's been out of law school for a few years, do a search online and look at your schools tuition. $40,000+ per year tuition and ~$60k per year including living expenses very widespread now even for non-top schools. As long as law schools can get away with BS'ing employment stats, even crappy ones can con people into plopping down that kind of money--If they were being honest, it's not an unreasonable trade-off.

Of course, in a number of cases, the reality of the situation is a completely unreasonable trade-off. The people who lie about what they're offering in order to put somebody in their 20s into six-figures of debt while taking away three years of their life (including deans, professors, admissions people, etc.) are total dirtbags.

50 - I'm sure you have everything you need to start a riot with 5 feet of your typing fingers.

Pretty sure no one is stopping you...

This is the cost-benefit analysis of Hastings: if you do well, you will probably like it, and it will be worth the money. But if you're not in the top 15% of your class, you are screwed and will not be able to find employment that allows you to repay your loans.

I actually liked Hastings. I got into a T20 school, but for personal reasons didn't want to leave the Bay Area, and Stanford and Boalt waitlisted me. Turns out I did well and could have transferred after a year if I'd wanted to, but decided to stay. I got the exact job I wanted and don't regret it.

I was Coif; I got a job at my first choice firm; most of the folks I was on law review with had their pick of BigLaw jobs, and some got federal appellate clerkships. But those who did less well got insurance defense jobs--or worse, much worse--and wanted to kill themselves after two weeks.

As for those complaining about the junkies, etc., that's just City life, and you are squeamish spoiled babies. Stay in your McMansions in the suburbs and enjoy the tacky white picket fruits of your snobbery.

That sounds great. I'm from California and bought a house about 3 years ago. Although I only put 3% down, there must be enough equity in my house now I can just take out a home equity loan to pay the 50 thou a year.

56-Hit the nail on the head

@59 - Yup. Buying real estate in Cali is like printing money. Everyone is their own Fed.

53 = drunk

#42: They must be the same partners who are now voting to lay off as many associates as possible. Feel the love, smell the glove, whatever.

this is fucking crazy!

Just don't go. Med school, MBA, anything else. Law school should come with a disclaimer: "Don't try this at home." You pay a lot of money for the privilege of having a very slim chance of making ANY money. Kids, don't do it!

Hastings is a very fine school if you are at the top, for law or business. George Roberts of KKR, one of the richest dudes in this country, is a Hastings grad. Enough said.

42 & 63, you got that right, you gotta love big law. I should know, I'm one of them. Your ship be sinking, not mine!

30 - Hastings unilaterally decided to boycott USNWR one year. USNWR had no employment data for the school and it dropped out of the Top 25. It has never returned.

Two points. First, Hastings pre-1995 and post-1995 are two different schools. The idea that there are more Hastings judges than any other school in CA is a reflection of its larger class sizes (comparative to other CA schools), its regional pull (Stanford and Cal kids can use their JDs outside CA), and its relatively high prestige in the 70s (which all but dwindled until the ranking debacle in the 90s).

Second, the fact is tuition for ALL professional schools in CA will no longer be subsidized in the future. So UCLA, Irvine, Cal and Hastings law schools will be functionally private. Best idea for these schools is to embrace this fact and charge full-private tuition. Check out the prospective costs of each UC law school next year - they're all absurd in comparison to recent years' tuition.

The real joke here is the justification from Hastings that they are trying to game the USNWR rankings by reducing the faculty:student ratio. In fact, during this past year the school cut two professor positions and increased the 1L class size from 390 to 480.

In addition, the school is aiming to increase its national profile. I imagine making the attendance cost for out-of-state students will reduce their representation at Hastings to nil (it's already just 3%).

Here's the fallout. The rankings will continue to drop, the kids that place in the top 25% of admission statistics will forgo the $5,000 scholarships they get from the school and pay full-tuition at a BC, BU, Notre Dame, or other 20-30 USNWR school. It will be Tier 2 within a couple of years.

And, this is a shame. Some of the students at Hastings are bright, competent and hard-working. The rest, unfortunately, are below-average and only bring down the school's reputation. When the economy was solid, just about everybody in the top 33% (about 133 positions) scored a 2L-summer BigLaw position.

*The fact that the economy and tuition hikes are going on simultaneously is unfortunate. But, they're really independent and separate issues.

And to you, UC Hastings, I'll see you again you know where.

Seriously, 69? No one cares to read that much. It may have been informative but learn to be succinct!!!!!!!!!!

30- I'll mention a handful of reasons.

As mentioned above, Hastings had a policy of hiring professors kicked out of other schools because they reached age 65. Once the other schools stopped their mandatory retirement policies, that source of great professors dried up.

Originally, Hastings was intended to be the law school for the entire UC system. But once the other major campuses started their own law schools, they were able to leverage their non-law reputations into better law schools. I think they were largely on parity in the 70s, but Boalt and UCLA have pulled ahead since then.

I know Hastings was also on track to offer a LLM in tax (which would have been the best tax LLM on the west coast, might have been on par with Georgetown, and definitely would have been better than BU or Florida), but my understanding is that it all fell apart due to a prior Dean's mismanagement and personal scandals. That may have affected their overall rankings too.

Hastings has big class size, and there is a good deal of variability in the performance of the students. So while you know the top 10% are going to perform well, there is none of that "one HLS grad is just as good as any other HLS grad" crap. It is harder to build alumni connections, because (speaking for one alum), I just don't know whether that other alum is any good or not. Davis has a smaller class size, and I think their alumni network works harder to maintain the school's image.

43 is spot on. California is approaching third world status. Sad but true.

Wow. I was confused for a moment because that was the name of my DORM in my cheaper, better law school.

Why would anyone go to "school" here out of state....

69 - good post. The glory of Hastings is over and it's only a matter of time before it falls into the Tier 2. Stanford, Boalt, UCLA, USC, Davis, Irvine and a host of out-of-state Top 25 law schools will keep more and more prospective students out of Hastings.

Hastings 2L, here. V-25 firm for summer 2010. California resident. I chose Hastings over a then T-20 school...which has now fallen steeply. The reality is, had I gone there, I very easily could have gotten a worse firm (the firms at their OCI were like rats on the Titanic--similar to ours!) and been in substantially more debt. Those of us in class of 2011 didn't need to predict the downturn--it was happening before our very eyes during orientation! Hastings is a strong regional school but it can't work miracles i.e., providing cut rate legal education and jobs for all in a bum economy.

Despite CA's failings, there are still plenty of people who would love to spent 3 years in San Francisco rather than Virginia, Michigan or Chicago, regardless of ranking. If you intend to work in the Bay Area after graduation, Hastings is a good choice - despite rankings it is locally well regarded.

Hastings is a good law school and if they get that LLM in tax and manage their new, higher tuitions better, I think given their location they should be able to attract seriously talented profs who would rather live in sunny CA than shitty East Coast.

To #44, I remember in law school (early 80's), there were several nationally-regarded profs at Hastings who had written standard text books that were widely used. Don't know what happened thereafter but from the sound of posts here, it appears the school went skiing downhill.

53, you are an asshole. I'm from the Bay, and Hastings still produces some of the best SF lawyers. Everyone I know there worked ten times harder than me to secure that Biglaw job.

Sad to say that law is a brand name game. By and large, those of us at "top" law schools and reaping the benefits of the preconceptions that go with it are the people that took cupcake college classes when we were 19 years old. Maybe that's because we knew we wanted to go to law school (yet knew nothing about being a lawyer) and gamed the system right, or maybe that's just plain chance....either way, it's a pretty dumb method of evaluating one's potential.

Although for the record, I did do better on the LSAT than you.

- drunk/employed/median HLS 2L

You can buy a culdesac in Detroit for that price.

I've been slaving away in the law review office at my preeminent peer law school for just under 4 hours. What have you schlubs accomplished today?

50, because we don't have time and know that it will get us nowhere.

BTW - Obama is the new Nixon.

- voted for O, wish I hadn't. O is ten times more damaging to this country than Bush was.

Hang on. They want that much for tuition and they're not even accredited? Does that even factor in the cost of taking the baby bar after 1L year? Ugh.

This would never hapen at Widener

This is insane. I feel sorry for those students. Hopefully the $50K tuition trend does not grow. But it probably will.

I don't think you understand that the UC system is equivalent to a system of private schools for out-of-state students. And does anyone think the cost of a law school correlates with the quality?

Hastings 3L here. V5, 160k.

Somehow, Yale LJ, Harvard L. Rev., Stanford L. Rev., and Columbia L. Rev. don't have any JaKe Emeritus on the masthead, and I know you're not on NYU L. Rev. Pseudonym, or non-peer journal?
-NYU STUD

Do we even NEED law schools anymore? None of this nation's founders when to "law school" and there was no "bar exam." And things went just fine.

Maybe we should start an ANTI-LAW SCHOOL movement where people can practice without paying a school and the ABA boatloads of money. This has all been a money-making venture, and I don't think the quality of lawyers has gone up. Right?

Can't we sue any jurisdiction that denies a person the right to practice based on bullshit reasoning about the "importance" of ABA accreditation and law schools generally?

It should be noted that the $50k tuition is only for OUT OF STATE residents. So presumably even if you are out of state for your 1L year, you declare residency thereafter & pay in state tuition rates.

Law school is expensive. Period. If you are going into law school naive about the cost, you're an idiot. You need to do your homework about your debt overall coming out of law school long before you sign those promissory notes, and figure out whether or not you're going to be able to handle it. It isn't Hastings' fault that you're in debt--it's yours. Figure it out. It's an expensive investment for a good career. There are a LOT of ways to make it cheaper for yourselves, but if you don't look into them, and don't take advantage of them, that's on you--not on Hastings (or any other law school for that matter).

Hastings got crushed by the CA budget crisis, and as a result has ended up becoming basically a "private" school. Yes, it has its negatives--it's huge, it's urban, it's bureaucratic. But it also has its positives--it has a very strong reputation in California (particularly in SF Bay Area), it allows a lot of students who can't get into SLS or Boalt to remain in the Bay Area at a well respected school (sorry Santa Clara folks, but unless you're into IP, Santa Clara just isn't quite there yet, and USF... well... no), and it has some of the best judicial externship access around.

Law school is a lot about what you make of it--you can sit & whine about what the school is like or you can go out & make opportunities for yourself. Career Services isn't there to be your mama, they're there as a resource. Professors aren't there to do your work for you--they're there as a resource--and unlike what previous posters have said, we still have some amazing faculty at Hastings. And most of all, no one is going to get good grades for you or get you that job you always wanted or think you deserve--get off your butt & go get it for yourself.

Sincerely,

A Tired-of-the-Whining Hastings 3L
Top 20%, Job Secure (Am100 Law Firm, $160k).

89, possibly. Section 90 of the Restatement covers this, I think.

NYU TO 190!

Errr.. NYC.

If the lenders put the money directly in my checking account, and I bailed on day 1 of 1st year, it might make economic sense.

Laurie Lin sucks ass.

do not take out more than $120k in debt to go to law school. that is the absolute maximum. and think twice about more than $60k. trust me.

$50k a year to attend this toilet x 3? A lifetime of student loan debt repayment as a toileteer? FUCK UC HASTINGS and all the other ABA approved law schools that are raping America's youth and future. This is just blatantly criminal. I just don't understand how anyone can fall for the law school scam these days.

90:

"Job Secure"...

Perhaps not for long...

And if you are laid off in troubled CA (or where-ever) with other Associates at your Am100 Law Firm; or your 160K salary is reduced, then you may think differently about the unnecessarily high cost of law school (especially a PUBLIC law school) or you may bemoan the system's reliance on going into debt to train attorneys.

It's not "whining" to critique the structures that make certain educational paths unaffordable.

Great, conscientious students can't find legal employment and the system needs to be critiqued for its lurid rising costs.

There but for the grace of God go all of us.

"If you are going into law school naive about the cost, you're an idiot."

I don't think anybody should have sympathy for those who don't know the costs of going to law school beforehand. The costs are offered to prospective students in black and white. What they're getting for the costs of going to law school, however, often isn't. It's often remarkably fudged if not (at the lower tier schools) outright fabricated.

Blaming the victims for being "naive" and for believing them is a trait of most conmen and if that's the route professors, deans, and careers services officials want to take to let themselves sleep better at night, I guess they can (since unlike the petty conman, they have a ton of legal protection backing them up and can rely on their advice in "properly" conducting business), but that's the category I put people in who BS career statistics so they can squeeze money out of kids--conmen.

The average petty criminal who cons $100 out of an old lady does less damage and is less of a scumbag than officials at lower tier schools who mislead about this sort of thing.

This isn't really fair to write this in response to you as you're not defending the employment statistic aspect that goes on at many schools -- this is a segue from what you're discussing, but I see the "naive" defenses of it a lot and I get sick of that.
Just because someone wound up at the top of a pyramid scheme and came out ahead (which I did) doesn't mean he has to defend the pyramid scheme. At the lower tier schools (and in this economy in all likelihood many better ones), that's what this amounts to. Maybe, maybe Hastings doesn't do this, however after graduating and looking at this for a few years, I get the impression just about every school fudges their employment numbers at least somewhat with the possible exception of HYS. At the higher ranked schools, where employment prospects have at least generally been exceptional, I guess you could argue that this is less nefarious (though I feel like a dick even for arguing that), but at least for half of law schools, the people who engage in this are just scumbags with a better pedigree.

98 -- I don't believe the numbers are fudged at CCN either. Frankly, even back in '98, when I applied to law school, everyone knew Hastings had a problem placing people in jobs and everyone knew that at most non T-15 schools, you were going to have a really hard time getting a decent job unless you were at the very top of your class. As a consequence, the lowest ranked school I applied to was UCLA. Below that, and you may as well try and make your way in the business world. That was my opinion then; it's just as true now. Some idiots get off on being a "lawyer" for some reason...

#90. Bravo. You need great grades to have great opportunities from a regional school. This is not a secret. If these people couldn't even bother to do basic internet research before attending law school, I have no pity for them...
Besides, a lot of them will end up in government jobs and while the loans will be a bitch,most of them won't starve or be reduced to contract attorney work.

it's Saturday. shouldn't you CHECK YOU EMAILS OFTEN today?

The University of California Law Schools --- the bureaucracy and inefficiency of a public university, the cost of a private school. Why would you go to, say Boalt, over Penn or Duke or Northwestern now?

Only an abject imbecile would pay more than $50K to attend HasTTTings.

90-Are you a straight, white male? I bet not. Hastings doesn't take kindly to admitting straight white males.

97-- Actually, I am quite "job secure," but thanks for the heads up, as if I haven't been paying attention to the changing legal market. I am not an ostrich with my head buried in the sand. I know what's going on, made my choice intelligently, and have not only a job, but one that's starting on time. Is that 100% guaranteed? Nope, but neither is the fact that I will pass the bar, or even be alive then. You can only do your best and control what you can, and then the rest... well... c'est la vie. However, there are ways to "hedge your bets"... and if my job turns out not to be there, I have 2 back up plans already in place. Again, it's all about insuring that you are looking out for yourself, because let's be realistic--no one else is. You can't bemoan something that you chose to be a part of--if for some reason my job isn't there when I am ready for it, I move on to the backup options (which by the way don't include blanket applications to other law firms or other BS that people are doing in the legal field). I am not going to sit around with this "woe is me" whining attitude people seem to have developed. What is with the legal field? People are SUCH whiners... get off your butts, folks. The economy is bad in general, so you have to be proactive. You may not get the job of your dreams right now, so you take a job & then move up down the road. But let's be real--I am not going to sit around whining & bemoaning a system that I CHOSE to take part in.

98 & 99-- Are you trying to tell me that people actually BELIEVE Career Services' stats? Oh come ON. That's like drinking the Corporate Koolaid. You can't believe that nonsense... you have to pound the ground & do your own research. And in this case, the market collapsed, so stats were useless. This is an industry that is restructuring, so who's to blame? Well... the economy, the entire legal industry, etc. And it just so happens that the further down you are in ranking & prestige, the more you're getting hurt in the collapse. But I doubt that many people are making their law school choice based on the Career Service Koolaid. If they are, they aren't doing their research & then shame on them.

Why is it that we give law students "a pass" in general when it comes to doing career research BEFORE going to law school? If you're undertaking $100-200k in debt, don't you think doing 6 months-1 year of solid research would be diligent to say the least? After all, you certainly wouldn't buy an apartment/condo/house for $100-200k without getting it inspected, knowing what the market is, looking around at 100 different comparables... There is no one to blame here but yourselves, folks. If YOU take on the debt, YOU made the decision. Sure, the economy sucks. Sure, you're going to be in debt a longer period than you thought. Suck it up. Be an adult. Go get a job that's going to make you pull in your bootstraps a little bit--just like most other people are having to do right now.

This sense of "entitlement" among law students is just bizarre.... I sure didn't feel "entitled" to a BigLaw job. I worked my butt off my 1L year, my 2L year, and even now. And if I didn't get a BigLaw job? Fine, then I would have gotten another job, and it would have taken me longer to pay off the debt, but I still would have done it. And now, if the BigLaw job falls through (as pessimistic poster #97, who has NO idea where I am slated to work is so clear is going to happen), I have backup options & plans. And if those fall through, I will find something else. Why? Because that's what you do. You work hard, you act like an adult, you take responsibility for the choices you made, and you move forward.

--OP #90.

87 = urm

79--

Legend has it that each day, Diogenes walked through the marketplace streets with a lantern in search of an honest man. I have often found myself doing the same for FTT students/grads, which until today I believed were beyond salvation.

My search has ended. Finally, one who is not subject to wild delusions of grandeur, who understands the reality of the legal profession! You are in no way an FTT student like many of the self-entitled hacks on here...you are a student with the (mis)fortune of attending an FTT school.

Do not forget from whence you came, good soldier and (once you pass the bar, which you will) future colleague!

"98 & 99-- Are you trying to tell me that people actually BELIEVE Career Services' stats? Oh come ON. That's like drinking the Corporate Koolaid. You can't believe that nonsense... you have to pound the ground & do your own research. And in this case, the market collapsed, so stats were useless."

"Why is it that we give law students "a pass" in general when it comes to doing career research BEFORE going to law school?"

-

And there's the "you were naive for believing me" excuse I expect out of petty conmen, but not anybody respectable.

Some kid does the research, he sees the numbers, so since he doesn't assume those at a university have engaged in the same sort of false advertising others go to jail for, it's that kid's fault. If it didn't help schools at all to do this, if it didn't mislead people--they wouldn't do it.

Out of the people you've met from lower tier schools, out of all the commentary you've read from grads, you've never heard a single person say they we're misled? This is belied by your criticism of all these people whining. This is bullshit and you know better . . . or, at least, "should know better."

BTW, 99- having attended CCN, I'm a little more skeptical of CCN, but I get the impression you did too, so just put me down as being more wary of it.

- 98

102 - i know i shouldn't feed the trolls, but i will. not to get all rankings-y on you, but:
1) Boalt is a "comfortably in the top ten" school, while penn, duke and northwestern (particularly that last) are kind of "we're why it's called t-14". not that that shit particularly matters to anyone but prospective students, but since you asked "why would anyone choose..." there is one reason.

A few more:
2) if you want to work in cali, and you are not in the top 10% of your class, you are better off going to a uc or usc or almost any other school in cali than going to northwestern, penn or duke. just like if you want to work in chicago or a number of midwestern cities, you should go to northwestern or michigan, and if you want to work in the south, you're better off a duke. there are only a few truly "national schools" and you're almost always better off going to the strongest school in the market you want to work in.
3) diversity. cali public schools just have a lot more people of color or otherwise diverse backgrounds than penn, duke and northwestern. just a fact. maybe it doesn't matter to you. didn't matter to me way back when i chose where to go law school. but i won't deny that it did enrich my experience when i was there, in ways i wouldn't have predicted or expected.
4) i think you overstate the amount of bureaucracy law students at any school actually see as well as how "good" the bureaucracy is at private schools. really, it's usually the registrars office that sucks hardest (along with the perennial complaints about career services), and this is equally true at just about every school across this great land. otherwise, most (as far as i know) most public university law schools have their own little outposts for financial aid, student services, etc. just as their private peers do. so i don't see a difference.
5) weather. seriously, folks, law school sucks. at least in cali it sucks with sunshine and, in many places, ocean views. duke seems alright on the weather front too. but northwestern? philly?

Hastings 3L here...

Rough times for all professional schools in the UC system (and the undergrad prices are rising, too). B-school, med school, law school - no difference - in the future the state simply cannot afford to (and will not) subsidize professional education.

As a 3L at the school, I'm a little less annoyed at the recent announcement to increase tuition than I am at the previous two years of tuition increase.

In June '09, the State tried to eliminate 100% of its funding for Hastings (roughly $10M); in the end, the state only cut 20% ($2M). Hastings appropriately responded by increasing tuition this year and anticipating future cuts. In two years, when the funding is gone, the school wont have to scramble to find funding, nor will it have to make dramatic tuition increases to cover the budget cap. I like the fact that Hastings finally realized its lot in the UC system and is proactively taking steps to right the future of the school.

My beef, rather, is the way the informed us (or failed to) about tuition increases while in school. In '07 (when we were baby 0Ls), and probably even before that, Hastings embarked on a plan to recruit more faculty. To do this, the school planned 25% tuition increases in each of the next two academic years. My problem is that the school did nothing to inform us about the plan when making our decisions. Coming from a private undergrad, I understand that tuition increases occur at an inflationary rate (but no more than 5%). But when we got the announcement that our tuition was jumping from $22K (1L) to $27K(2L) to $32K(3L), we we're all committed to the school.

The recent fee increase is reactionary - they simply had to do it in response to the State's budget cuts. The previous two increases were planned. I feel they withheld this information from us as prospective students in '07. This is my problem.

Now $15K more, in the long run, is nothing to cry about. But the advanced warning would have been welcomed. I think its fairly clear that the cost of attendance will drive away its top students, decrease its "USNWR" ranking, and devalue the diploma.

110,

I'm the recruiting manager at a big firm in NYC. I've heard of UCLA and UC-Berkley. But I've never heard of Hastings. You seem to know a lot about this so-called University of California Hastings College of the Law. Can you tell me whether the school is accredited by the American Bar Association and a member in good standing of the Association of American Law Schools?

Thanks

111= New York School of Law 2L i,e, future contract attorney lifer.

Brothers, sisters: you work and toil, but receive only debt. Your paper, that you cling to, produces no ownership of the means of production. Rise up! Cast off the shackles of oppression, and eat a nice portabello mushroom sandwich, with fresh balsamic vinegar, and a sauce made of equal parts mayo and pesto. UNITE!

This post is addressed to Commenter #88/"NYU STUD"

The fact that you think my real name could be JaKe Emeritus, and would therefore appear on the law review masthead, is evidence enough for why you don't attend a preeminent peer law school.

I just finished an 8 minute power lunch, which was preceded by nearly 9 hours of law review work. Another 6 to go before dinner. You dilatory wretches have no idea how poor you will soon be.

Hastings 3L here, again...

One final point about the school. Hastings is a divided school. HLJ kids and the rest of us who round out the top 25% of the class do just fine. We got summer jobs, we got offers, and we're competent people. There is a good majority of kids who tried to get BigLaw but could not and a sizable population of kids that want nothing to do with BigLaw or private practice (probably more so than at any other school).

This divide continues after graduation. We (in BigLaw) resent the school for admitting the bottom of the class who force us to justify our existence in the legal profession (That said, when the 2 Stanford kids and 2 other Ivy League summers did not get an offer at my SF V25 and I did, I was pretty smug about it - Harvard is so TTT). The other kids at Hastings resent the school for failing to provide them with a lucrative career. In the end, almost nobody likes the school, nobody gives back, and most look at the school as a three-year Tenderloin sentence that we never look back on after graduation.

Bottom line, Hastings either works out for you or it doesn't. If it does, it was probably a better financial decision than going to a private school in the USNWR 20-30 by about $15K-$30K. Congratulations - you won. In the future, though, the financial boon that used to come along with attending Hastings, doing well, and getting a job wont exist. Neither will the need to attend the school (unless you have some pressing need to be in SF).

17 - no one is forcing anyone to attend law school. if you don't like the price, don't buy the product.

Hastings 3L (i.e., 110 and 115).

I had the same question as the law firm recruiting manager (no. 111). Is Hastings accredited by the ABA and a member of AALS?

Thank you,
Not a troll -- just curious.

50 ==> because you are gutless imbeciles.

110 and 117,

Hastings 3L, here. UC-Hastings was at one time a top law school -- on of the finest on the West Coast. In 1995, however, the College of Law lost its ABA accreditation. BUT (and there's an important but), any student who graduates UC-Hastings is eligible to sit for the California Bar Exam. And other states will often times grant reciprocity to members in good standing of the California bar, albeit after 3-5 years of practice.

ABA accreditation is not in the least bit important if you plan to practice in California, which over 95% of our students do.

Hope this helps,
Hastings 3L

The UC law schools are essentially welfare for law professors at this point. Those of you who have wondered how the tuition can be 5X more than it was ten years ago when state funding has dropped 30% are asking the right questions. It's about time students (current, former, and present) held the right people accountable. Your unfireable, 250k/year, unbelievable benefits-having professor who misses office hours and has to be forced to actually teach both semesters might be a part of the problem. But you have to spend, spend, spend to keep the best professors right? These professors could make tons of money in the private sector! Bullshit. My best professors (with one or two notable exceptions) were lower-paid lecturers. How many of you researched law school professors before you made your decision where to attend? If you aren't happy making 100-150k with full benefits teaching law at UC whatever then get the fuck out and go to some private school. Good news - UCLA just gave Professor Bainbridge "an offer he couldn't refuse" to stay (his words). Fantastic. UCLAW to 50k! to pay for it.

-UCLAW '05 grad

119 -- thanks for clarifying. i kind of thought that UC-Hastings was one of those buy-a-degree-online schools, like "University of Phoenix" or "Golden State Law School." Is UC-Hastings even part of the UC system (a la UCLA, Boalt)?

56 - law students as victims...a truly moronic argument.

I chose Hastings over Top 25 law schools outside of California. I've always regretted my choice, but I really do now.

I chose Hastings over Top 25 law schools outside of California. I've always regretted my choice, but I really do now.

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when did hastings lose its aba accreditation?

i graduated in 2001, clerked in the central district, and went on to work at a big firm, which i joined in 2002. we regularly recruit from hastings -- i make sure of it. and i've been giving money to the school for a long time. i know we dropped in the u.s. news rankings a bit, and i can deal with that and continue to recruit on campus, but can anyone elaborate on when and why we lost our aba accreditation?

current students/faculty: is there anything that the bay-area alumni group can do to help?

concerned alum

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This can't be for real.

I'm a 1L at Hastings and I'm sure I would have heard if we lost ABA-accred. There has got to be some sort of mistake. I'm going to shoot an email to Dean Martinez and ask him for some clarification.

This can't be for real.

I'm a 1L at Hastings and I'm sure I would have heard if we lost ABA-accred. There has got to be some sort of mistake. I'm going to shoot an email to Dean Martinez and ask him for some clarification.

I'm sure some of these people saying that Hastings isn't ABA accredited are kidding, but something tells me that some aren't. Hastings is typically among the top 30-40 law schools in the country; of course it's accredited. Sadly, Hastings' reputation suffers by being a stand-alone university without an undergrad campus, so many people outside of Cali have never heard of it. It is still a decent law school, but was once a great one that was forever harmed by the US News Rankings in the 90s.

The real joke, or farce, when it comes to what some are willing to pay for a JD is the quality of the professional skills they get in return. It appears to me (partner in big law SF firm) that roughly 80% from Hastings grads and many (i.e. all) of even the top 25 law schools never learned to write clearly or effectively. I guess they spent too much time surfing the web or writing snaky emails about their profs.

Well, at least those skills are useful surfing Craigslist looking a job in big retail.

WHY DOES EVERYONE CARE ABOUT "ABA ACCREDITATION"?

SERIOUS -- THE ABA IS RELEVANT FOR ONLY ONE THING: RATING THE PRESIDENT'S JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS. THE ABA HAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH WHETHER A SCHOOL IS GOOD, LET ALONE WHETHER ITS GRADUATES ARE GOOD PRATITIONERS. AS A HASTINGS 3L I CAN ATTEST THAT OUR STUDENTS ARE GOOD AND, AS HAS ALREADY BEEN POINTED OUT IN SEVERAL POSTS, OUR ALUMNS MAKE UP A LARGE PORTION OF THE CALIFORNIA JUDICIARY (NOTWITHSTANDING THE NO-ACCREDITATION-THING).

JEEZ PEOPLE. WHO CARES?

96 - please tell us what criminal law is being broken.

I only read the first 50 comments, so sorry if someone else pointed this out. Hastings' actions make perfect sense if its intention is to from now on cater exclusively to in-state.
In the current political context, it may be a tough sell to argue that your state should sponsor the legal education of out-of state people who will go back home.

This comment is addressed to the hopelessly poor masses that still believe that law school is a ticket to wealth:

Unless you were born into obscene wealth and attended a preeminent peer finishing school (or university for the mentuat read this board) I suggest crawling back into whatever suburban gutter you came from. I realized yesterday as I was sipping on a well-known vintage of Bordeaux that cost more than the paltry salaries that regulars here earn that most aspiring lawyers are really little more than cockroaches fighting over crumbs. Partner is a magnificent stallion as a man, a professional, and a lover. None of you (save JaKe and his younger brother) will ever live up to the standard that they set. The women that aspire to be lawyers should quit immediately and spend their money on a proper finishing school. The men should quit and find a meaningless job in the service industry.

JaKe, a former finishing school classmate of mine has a daughter that will be in town this weekend. She comes from a preeminent peer family and is a young woman of obscene wealth. Her attendance at a proper finishing school has enabled her to blossom into a stunning young woman. She would be thrilled to show off her finishing school skills to you this weekend. If you can take a moment from your exceptionally hard work to meet this young lady, leave a mesage at the park avenue condo that your father bought me.

125,

As a Hastings 3L and a member of the student government, I can tell you that our class is thrilled that your firm continues to recruit heavily from the College of Law. Some employers have stopped recruiting heavily given the current market conditions.

Yes: There are a few things I think you and other bay-area alumni can do to help. First, continue to recruit on campus. Second, continue to donate money and ask that it be earmarked for scholarship. Third, reach out to the law school administration and tell them to lobby harder to get back our ABA accreditation and to reapply to the AALS.

I've interviewed at a few large firms in the bay-area (perhaps even yours), and was quite taken aback when an associate said, to my face, "I'm surprised you landed an interview; we've cut back on hiring from non-accredited law schools such as UC-Hastings and Golden Gate."

It's hard enough to land a job in this market -- we need alumni support. Contact the law school administration or write directly to the American Bar Association on their website: http://www.abanet.org/

Thanks for your support,
Concerned (but optimistic) student!

I graduated from Hastings in 2003. During my time at the school the tuition average was about $12,000.

I got in to both USC and Stanford - but I CHOSE to go to Hastings, due only to the tuition costs. Both of these schools tuition at the time was around $30,000. USC offered me $3,000 in financial aid. Stanford offered me nothing.

I graduated at the top of my Hastings class and easily got in to Big Law. But, honestly, if the tuitions for Hastings versus a private school had been about the same, there is NO WAY that I would have gone to Hastings. By increasing their fees by this much Hastings is going to lose out on some of the better students who saw the school as a financial risk that they were willing to take.

125,

As a Hastings 3L and a member of the student government, I can tell you that our class is thrilled that your firm continues to recruit heavily from the College of Law. Some employers have stopped recruiting heavily given the current market conditions.

Yes: There are a few things I think you and other bay-area alumni can do to help. First, continue to recruit on campus. Second, continue to donate money and ask that it be earmarked for scholarship. Third, reach out to the law school administration and tell them to lobby harder to get back our ABA accreditation and to reapply to the AALS.

I've interviewed at a few large firms in the bay-area (perhaps even yours), and was quite taken aback when an associate said, to my face, "I'm surprised you landed an interview; we've cut back on hiring from non-accredited law schools such as UC-Hastings and Golden Gate."

It's hard enough to land a job in this market -- we need alumni support. Contact the law school administration or write directly to the American Bar Association on their website: http://www.abanet.org/

Thanks for your support,
Concerned (but optimistic) student!

125,

As a Hastings 3L and a member of the student government, I can tell you that our class is thrilled that your firm continues to recruit heavily from the College of Law. Some employers have stopped recruiting heavily given the current market conditions.

Yes: There are a few things I think you and other bay-area alumni can do to help. First, continue to recruit on campus. Second, continue to donate money and ask that it be earmarked for scholarship. Third, reach out to the law school administration and tell them to lobby harder to get back our ABA accreditation and to reapply to the AALS.

I've interviewed at a few large firms in the bay-area (perhaps even yours), and was quite taken aback when an associate said, to my face, "I'm surprised you landed an interview; we've cut back on hiring from non-accredited law schools such as UC-Hastings and Golden Gate."

It's hard enough to land a job in this market -- we need alumni support. Contact the law school administration or write directly to the American Bar Association on their website: http://www.abanet.org/

Thanks for your support,
Concerned (but optimistic) student!

The school is ABA accredited - don't mind the trollsters. But it's sad the we're in question about whether it is.

I agree with 130 (although you should LOSE THE CAPS): A.B.A. accreditation is not all it's cracked up to be. The folks on this site who are making a fuss about it are probably trolls from Boalt or UCLA or USC or Stanford. You have accreditation and Hastings doesn't. So what? Hastings still has more alumni on the bench and is the only California school, aside from Stanford, to have alumni go on to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Really - the Hastings-lost-our-ABA-accreditation talk is yesterday's news. Let's move on to another topic -- one that actually matters -- like the tuition increase!

138, you're only part right.

Hastings was at one point in good standing with the American Bar Association. No more. But we still are part of the California Bar Association. As a current Hastings 3L, it's a distinction without difference. But it is an accurate distinction, nevertheless.

Who cares that UC-Hastings no longer is part of the American Bar Association??? Seriously. Its a friggin' recession, for Christ's sake. If the school is gonna up my tuition to $50,000/year, I hope that its cutting corners with bar associations and other things. If students are so concerned about being part of the ABA then do what I did, buy a student membership! Its a few bucks/year and looks good on the resume.

140: Are you sure?

141,

Are you serious? Being part of the ABA is a real big deal! It impacts what Bar exams you can sit for outside of the State of California, it is important to potential employers (see, e.g., commenter 125), and it is relevant to professors looking to make a lateral move. I've didn't know that UC-Hastings was unaccredited until now and I've been practicing law long enough to know that -- once it becomes common knowledge in the Bay-area that the school is no longer in good standing -- it will have a detrimental effect on current students and alumni alike.

Hastings c/o 2004.

Extraordinary the entitlement some feel here.

Rioting? Because you don't get handed $200K a year the way someone told you you would?

You make the decision what to pay, complaining about being misled is soooooooo weak. Do you also sign up and pay for those courses that email advertisements with some schlub saying "I made $10K last month while sitting at home!"?

No, hopefully, you'd be too embarrassed to complain about how you got ripped off by them. Well, champ, whining that you got ripped off because you paid big sums to someone for the sole reason that that person told you you'd get rich if you paid them, is

a) a pretty pathetic reason to enter a profession
b) just plain embarassing -- man up.

I'm not on student senate, but as a concerned 2L, I think post 137 bears repeating:

----

125,

As a Hastings 3L and a member of the student government, I can tell you that our class is thrilled that your firm continues to recruit heavily from the College of Law. Some employers have stopped recruiting heavily given the current market conditions.

Yes: There are a few things I think you and other bay-area alumni can do to help. First, continue to recruit on campus. Second, continue to donate money and ask that it be earmarked for scholarship. Third, reach out to the law school administration and tell them to lobby harder to get back our ABA accreditation and to reapply to the AALS.

I've interviewed at a few large firms in the bay-area (perhaps even yours), and was quite taken aback when an associate said, to my face, "I'm surprised you landed an interview; we've cut back on hiring from non-accredited law schools such as UC-Hastings and Golden Gate."

It's hard enough to land a job in this market -- we need alumni support. Contact the law school administration or write directly to the American Bar Association on their website: http://www.abanet.org/

Thanks for your support,
Concerned (but optimistic) student!

What's a UC-Hastings?

TWO FACTS YOU ALL NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HASTINGS: First, Hasting is ABA accredited and second, the school has in fact declined (the quality is not the same as it was 10+ years ago)

It's a bit unclear from the comments. Can someone clarify whether the University of California Hastings College of the Law is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member in good standing of the Association of American Law Schools?

No trolls, please.

"if you want to work in cali, and you are not in the top 10% of your class, you are better off going to a uc or usc or almost any other school in cali than going to northwestern, penn or duke."

Are you mad? I work for a large firm here in California. Boalt falls slightly lower than Penn and Duke in terms of recruiting. There are just too damn many of you Boalt, UCLA, etc. types applying, so we can be more picky. You can be median at Penn and Duke and get a job in a normal hiring year. Boalt you need to be above median, and top quarter or so at UCLA or Northwestern. USC has a good alum network, but it is really hard to get a job at a top firm if you are non urm and outside top 10%. You have to be a real standout at Davis or Hastings to get a job (top 10 students in the class or so). Plus no UC gives you an easy in to NYC. UC used to offer a great education for the money. But with money out of the equation, you may as well go to a private school and not deal with all of the downsides of a public school.

147: You're correct insofar as UC-Hastings is still a member in good standing of the California Bar Association. But our studies are more California-centric, which is I think why the ABA yanked our accreditation in the first place.

2L, J.P.

147: You're correct insofar as UC-Hastings is still a member in good standing of the California Bar Association. But our studies are more California-centric, which is I think why the ABA yanked our accreditation in the first place.

2L, J.P.

I thought Californians wanted to use public institutions - like universities and hospitals - to serve the greater good..blah blah blah.

This is what happens when fluffy rhetoric has no substance behind it. Congrats to the idiot liberals responsible for a $50k/year "public" school.

UC-Hastings was approved by the ABA in 1939 and is still on its approved list. It takes 30 seconds to find this out on line. The people who couldn't find that out for themselves lack a basic skill of the profession.

What 153 said.

http://www.abanet.org/legaled/approvedlawschools/alpha.html

UC Hastings lost its ABA approval for a brief 3-year time period in the mid-late 90s, but 153 and 154 are correct that it is currently approved.

I'm not sure whether students still have to take the "baby bar" after graduation before sitting for the real bar exam.

The frst-second-third tier stuff is also a little silly, or at least unrelated to the real world outside of BigLaw. In this state (Oregon) hiring partners (of which I've been one) divide law schools into three tiers. The first tier includes Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and maybe Chicago, Virginia, and Cornell. These are national schools; we've heard of them; their graduates are consistently bright. (They don't, however, consistently have common sense.) We can argue about two or three others: Berkeley? Columbia?

The second tier includes the Oregon schools: UO, Willamette, and Lewis & Clark. The University of Washington is an honorary member of the second tier. This is the second tier because we believe that students who go to an Oregon school, or to UW, have committed to staying in the northwest and aren't looking to leave town in three years.

The third tier is everyone else.

Hastings is a fine school. Today it's a school for people who want to practice in California.

According to Hastings's website the average grad gets an offer of $131k to work at a big firm and $90k to work at a small firm. This doesn't even include bonuses and other benefits.

http://www.uchastings.edu/prospective-students/after-hastings/index.html

With such high salaries, it should not be challenging to pay the loans back after working for 5-10 years; so what's the big deal?

157 - those numbers are bogus. They are only averaging the salaries which have been reported to them. This does not factor in all the $0 salaries of graduates with no offers. Unfortunately, most of the students at UC Hastings will be around that $0 salary range. All schools do this on their websites, btw.

Do you really expect to pay off $150-200k in 5-10 years? Good luck, dude.

149,

Just to clarify, which UPennState law school are you referring to? The satellite campus in Philadelphia or the main law school in State College?

158-

If the school's employment data is bogus why isn't there any legal action against whoever posted it? Wouldn't this be a simple case of fraud (or, maybe even wrongful death in the event of a student suicide[though this might be a strech])?

The elements of fraud in California are: "(a) misrepresentation (false representation, concealment, or nondisclosure); (b) knowledge of falsity (or 'scienter'); (c) intent to defraud, i.e., to induce reliance; (d) justifiable reliance; and (e) resulting damage."

The elements for a wrongful death action in California are: (1) the tort (negligence or other wrongful act); (2) the resulting death; (3) and the damages, consisting of the pecuniary loss suffered by the heirs. "Wrongful act" means any "tortious act."

104- I'm a 3L at Hastings, and also happen to be a straight white male. I know many others at Hastings that are also straight white males, so accept the fact that you got dinged for some other reason and move on. Thanks

Wait, so did U.C. Hastings regain ABA accreditation or does it remain unaccredited?

161 - closeted homo.

Please stop feeding the accreditation trolls. Thank you.

161 and 104 = quarrelling gay lovers

Stop arguing and espousing your redolent scat.

+++++++++
I'm a current UC-Hastings 3L and feel a bit compelled to set the record straight.

First, to the extent any current students or alumni are stating that our College of Law has "accreditation," I think you are being deceptive and doing the law school a disservice. UC-Hastings has first earned its California Bar Association (CBA) accreditation in 1939 and has been CBA-certified since. But UC-Hastings no longer has American Bar Association (ABA) accreditation; it lost accreditation in the late-90s when the ABA Board of Governor's yanked our accreditation. Its not such a big deal -- Hastings grads can still sit for the California Bar -- but any suggestion that we still have ABA accreditation is simply false.

It's a bit unclear from the comments. Can someone clarify whether the University of California Hastings College of the Law is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member in good standing of the Association of American Law Schools?

167 - AMEN. I don't know why people like to post crap suggesting that we are no longer accredited by the CBA. UC-Hastings, like graduates of Golden Gate and other Cali schools, are able to sit for the California Bar Exam and become members of the California Bar.

168 - We are not ABA accredited. BUT, more important, WE ARE CBA accredited.

168: No to ABA; Yes to AALS

This is what happens when you govern by Ballot Proposition.

This is what happens when your people vote themselves the government they want, but vote not to pay for it.

This is what happens when Prop 13 passes.

Took awhile, but the piper is here, and he wants to be paid.

This is what happens when you govern by Ballot Proposition.

This is what happens when your people vote themselves the government they want, but vote not to pay for it.

This is what happens when Prop 13 passes.

Took awhile, but the piper is here, and he wants to be paid.

I knew that Golden Gate law school lost its accreditation but I wasn't aware that Hastings lost its accreditation as well. It is no surprise to see two San Francisco law schools in the same sinking ship, though.

OK -- enough knocking on Hastings. I'm sure that the students who dropped $50k/year are pretty pissed off that their school has been feeding them b.s. about "being accredited" when, all Hastings is accredited by is the state bar and not the ABA. Frankly, I think its real messed up and that current Hastings students probably can file suit against the school. This is bad for the school -- I don't see why, going forward, anyone in their right mind would drop $150,000 for 3 years tuition if the school is no longer accredited and students cannot sit for other state bars.

I go to UCLA and I thank the good lord that this didn't happen to me. I'm hopeful that our school will let in some of the Hastings 1Ls who may transfer knowing now that their school has lost its accreditation.

The rumor mill in the law school has been churning all day. Dean M., I hear, will be addressing the student body next Tuesday to discuss this accreditation business. It's real problematic for 3Ls who are still looking for jobs.

THIS SHIT IS SERIOUS.

messed up, man. best of luck to all hastings students and alums caught in the aba/cba cross-fire.

I know that UC-Hastings had its ABA accreditation suspended when I was a 2L in 2005, but the fact that our accredtation was now pulled is news to me.

What is the sexual orientation breakdown of Hastings students? [Answers from insiders only please]

The UC-Hastings ship be sunk.

"If the school's employment data is bogus why isn't there any legal action against whoever posted it?"

-

160, I would like to introduce you to 105.

-

"98 & 99-- Are you trying to tell me that people actually BELIEVE Career Services' stats? Oh come ON. That's like drinking the Corporate Koolaid. You can't believe that nonsense... you have to pound the ground & do your own research. And in this case, the market collapsed, so stats were useless."

-

This is what your fellow defenders of Hastings think of you for believing those numbers.

Fortunately, they also apparently don't believe you exist either.

As for the reasons why some schools have avoided legal action, there are a few--often they aren't outright lies, merely very misleading (i.e., 1.) a school only reports the numbers on those who return surveys; people who send back this information are much more likely to be employed, 2.) they'll also make much more of an effort to track down students for these surveys who are employed to return the surveys, 3.) they'll separate firm stats or big law firm stats from the other data (as they do in your post), avoiding the issue of what percentage of their students actually got these jobs or wanted them but couldn't get them). More of a problem, though, is the fact that someone wanting to take up a suit is suing a bunch of lawyers with connections to a bunch of other lawyers. That person also would be making himself a pretty big pariah among firms if he starts out his career by suing his law school.

Of course, you should take what I say with a grain of salt--even though I went to a much better law school and in all likelihood have a much better job, apparently I'm just bitter.

Regards,

-98

I graduated from UC Hastings in the mid-90's. As much as I love Hastings, I can't in good conscience suggest that anybody who wants to practice in a state other than California attend there, as the ABA accreditation being pulled prevents new graduates from taking non-California bar exams. Those who graduated prior to the revocation are grandfathered in, thank god.

Wow.

It's like a fairytale here.

So many trolls under the bridge...

It is now nearly 9pm, and I have been at the law review office for the past 16 hours. My steward is nearly here to chauffeur me home so that I may get a decent rest before beginning my day in less than 7 hours.

I can't wait to see how poor you all become relative to me.

182, agreed. If UC Hastings is paying people to falsely claim they're ABA-accredited, would that endanger their bid for re-accreditation?

Yes to ABA. Jesus Christ, read the thread, or, you know, go to the ABA's website and look.

Or stop trolling. Either way.

http://www.abanet.org/legaled/approvedlawschools/alpha.html

So far I think only #26 has figured out the best plan of attack: marry rich, make some money, and THEN go to law school.

Stop feeding the accreditation trolls. Seriously. Do not listen to anyone claiming to be a current or former student saying that the school is not accredited or lost its accreditation. They are either trolls or clueless.

http://www.calbar.ca.gov/state/calbar/calbar_generic.jsp?cid=10115&id=5128#aba

187 -- Thanks for posting this. You confirmed what we thought: Hastings is accredited by the California Bar Association; not the AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION.

http://www.abanet.org/legaled/approvedlawschools/alpha.html

And you, 188, are a moron. If you actually went to the site you would see that it is a list of ABA ACCREDITED SCHOOLS in California. Since the last link didn't get through, let's try this one:
http://www.abanet.org/legaled/approvedlawschools/alpha.html

Cogs: accreditation is irrelevant if the firm is a non-preeminent, non-peer school.

If Hastings is no longer accredited, why would anyone attend?

Since the mid-90s, I have noticed a drop in quality in Hastings lawyers. This is unfortunate. The school used to be a well regarded Top 20 with excellent students and faculty.

-Old Hastings Alum

Hastings 2L here.
The administration is handling the tuition hike very badly. Believe it or not there is a purpose and a vision behind the increase, they just haven't bothered to explain it yet, except for the half-ass town hall meeting held last week.
Alumni take heart. Hastings is on its way back up.
But prospective students: run.

Hastings trolls, nobody is denying that Hastings USED to be accredited by the ABA. That list is of every law school that has ever been accredited. It's not CURRENTLY accredited (except by the California Bar Association). Nice try, guys.

I see Hastings dropping down to second tier or near second tier status. Asking that much for Hastings is obscene.

Something tells me JaKe's 16 hour law review session was actually a 16 hour bong review session on his couch.

135,

Q: What do you call someone who gets into Stanford law school but ends up enrolling at Hastings?

A: A moron.

I have a trust fund and don't need loans.

Still wouldn't go to Hastings. Not worth the opportunity cost.

200...

...but it feels anti-climactic.

198 - agreed

To all law students -

Take time off until the job market is good again. Graduating in a down economy will adversely affect your lifetime earning. It is much better to be looking for an entry-level job in a good economy as a student than as someone who has been un/under-employed for two years.

isn't there a cause of action to sue law schools that have misleading placement statistics? I mean, what about good old-fashioned fraud? Isn't that what is going on here with respect to a lot of schools?

To No. 58 -- you wrote "But those who did less well got insurance defense jobs--or worse, much worse--and wanted to kill themselves after two weeks."

What could be "worse, much worse" than insurance defense jobs? Maybe representing slumlords in landlord-tenant court? What did you have in mind?

found this online:

UC Hastings Alums In The News!

1. "Sleeves Bandit" Bank Robber: http://www.mercurynews.com/centralcoast/ci_12075913?nclick_check=1

2. Hastings Lawyer Denied Law License: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/business/02lawyer.html

found this online:

UC Hastings Alums In The News!

1. "Sleeves Bandit" Bank Robber: http://www.mercurynews.com/centralcoast/ci_12075913?nclick_check=1

2. Hastings Lawyer Denied Law License: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/business/02lawyer.html

hi

It's PUSSY FART time; bitches, let 'em RIP!!

I blame students for the runaway trend in law school tuition. For all their pretensions about "social justice" most law schools are basically for-profit businesses. Professors sure as hell won't give up their plump salaries and minimal teaching burdens out of a sense of compassion for aspiring future lawyers. The only thing that will drive law school tuition down is if enough people either (a) don't go to law school at all or (b) gravitate to the less expensive law schools (yes, they do exist) so as force law school administrations to cut prices in order to compete for students.

Is there a price point at which that will happen? I think so, but probably not until we're closer to $100K/year tuition. So long as the costs of attendance are disguised by easy student loan credit and people can dream of $160K/year salaries there are going to be a lot of directionless 22-year-olds who see law school as their ticket to automatic success in life.

I really don't feel much sympathy for the students being gouged right now. They're grown-ups who have chosen to take a calculated risk that the value of obtaining a law degree will outweigh its costs. For a few, that risk will pay off. For most it won't. That's on them, not on the people selling the service who rightly charge what the market will bare.

209 - what if a law school claims 90% employed at graduation, but they're counting anyone who had any job as "employed", even a Wal-Mart greeter? This type of deception would never pass the "no material misstatement or omission to state a material fact" test used for sales of securities, why should it pass for the sale of a product that consumes 3 years of your life and leaves you an indentured servant to loan payments?
If the information regarding post-graduate opportunities is correct and not misleading, I'm all for letting the market sort it out, but there is more than that going on here. It's a con, simple as that.

There are so many misconceptions here...

1. Hastings has never lost its ABA accreditation...to suggest that it has is simply ludicrous.

2. Hastings is not the only UC law school (or even the only professional school) to be heading towards privatization. Over the next 5 years ALL UC professional schools (medical, law, MBA) will be gradually weaned off state support almost entirely. (see SacBee article "UC Professional Schools Facing Shrinking State Subsidies")

3. Hastings is slightly above average. It's not Boalt, but its not Golden Gate either. It will get you a legal job, albeit not a 'biglaw' job. To hear people disparage Hastings in these comments, it makes it seem like we are talking about Cooley or Florida Coastal. We are not....Hastings will get you a decent job in the Bay Area.

211, it may get you a decent job in the Bay Area because Hastings is accredited by the State Bar of California. It's worthless to those who want to take the bar exam in another state, however, due to the revocation of ABA accreditation in the mid-90's.

I graduated from Hastings this year and have a job at a top firm. While I can't personally compare my experience with other schools, I found Hastings beyond satisfactory. Blocks from the CA Supreme Ct and the Ninth Circuit. Professors were top notch and always had time for students - but who the hell meets with their professors after the first year anyway.

I've notice most of the Hastings haters seem to be fools who were denied admittance and Berkeley grads jealous of our cuter girls.

Would I go to Hastings again for $50k a year? No. But I wouldn't go to any non-top ten school for that. In fact, I wouldn't even go to school right now at all. I'd move to China, become a pop-idol and sell posters of myself.

195 & 212: Hastings is currently accredited by the ABA. You're either dipshits or trolls, or both. Do some due diligence or shut up.

214, I did do my diligence and I discovered it lost accreditation in the mid-1990's. Granted, it was accredited for decades but it's not any more. Let it go man.

re: fraud lawsuit

Yes. This would be an open and close case for fraud. Post 160 lays out the required elements to prove fraud in CA. Surely, there must be a Hastings drop out or someone in the bottom half of the class--without a legal career to lose--who would be rational to bring suit for compensatory and punitive damages.

If somebody believes the Hastings trolls and attends Hastings believing that the school is ABA accredited, would they have a fraud claim against the trolls? Assume for the purposes of the hypothetical that their identities are ascertainable and they're not judgment proof.

211,

"Hastings will get you a decent job in the Bay Area"

The above quote--unfortunately--is not true, even in a good market. There is almost no "mid-law" sector for those who don't get a big-law job. Ninety-five percent of law school graduates at Hastings who don't make big law will end up in a legal position where they're grossly underpaid and overworked, when factoring in the time/money spent on law school (i.e., 70 hours per week to make $40,000). Many graduates won't even get an offer for one of those jobs, and will simply need to write off the 3 year experience as a complete loss. Going to Hastings--especially after not ranking near the top after the first semester--is not rational.

217, no, don't be silly. U.C. Hastings is widely known as an unaccredited borderline diploma mill, and therefore reliance on anonymous comments in an internet thread aren't reliable, thus defeating any fraud claim.

Hastings is a diploma mill. Their 1L class has ~500 students.

218 you are stoopid. There are a lot of small and mid-law firms in the bay area (and even more in SoCal, where 25-30% of Hastings grads find work). Even government jobs in CA pay 65k+. I've talked with recent Hastings graduates who did poorly and still got 80k jobs. Hastings has a huge alumni network, and that if nothing else helps our grads find work.

Show some evidence please for 'no midlaw'. If you look at the NLJ's bimodal salary distribution chart you will see that there are about as many jobs in between the two peaks as there are at the top of each of the two peaks. Check out law.com and read about how midlaw is growing despite the recession.

I suspect you are not familiar with California...you sound like an NYC area guy. What is true there is not true out here...SF police officers start out at 75k, Oakland police entry salary is 80k. Lawyers that make 40k in the Northeast make 65k in California.

I did not say a 'decent job' meaning 100k+. I said it meaning 60k+.

213,

The Berkeley grads don'tt hate on Hastings. Also, the girls at GGU blow the girls at Hastings out of the water. Not even close.

"Hastings is a diploma mill. Their 1L class has ~500 students."

How could a diploma mill have a 164 median LSAT? Thats over 90th percentile. The acceptance rate is under 25%. How is that even remotely close to a diploma mill?

@156: I think that you accurately describe the way many Portland hiring partners see the world. Unfortunately, I think it's quite mistaken, smacks of NW provincialism, and actually hurts firms. There is an undeniable difference between the quality of candidates that went to a T25/30 school, and the vast majority of students that go to L&C (#61), U of O (#77), and Willamette (3rd Tier). Personally, I'd rather hire someone who had both the ability and drive to go to a more competitive school than someone who couldn't get into a more competitive school--or worse--chose not to compete with students of their caliber.

Given Portland's location, I think many firms in town could acquire better talent than they currently have if they considered that there is a big difference between the local schools and the T20/25 schools. I have seen quite a few highly talented T20/T10 Oregon natives "settle" for BigLaw elsewhere due to the way Portland hiring partners see the law school landscape.

223,

Because it pops out almost 600 mediocre classes of attorneys per year. That is three times the number of Stanford grads, and almost twice the number of Berkeley grads per year.

terrible logic 225...by your reasoning many of the T14 are 'diploma mills'

Hastings - 1300 students

Columbia - 1300
Georgetown - 2000
Harvard - 1800
NYU - 1700
UMich - 1100
UVA - 1100
Fordham - 1500

Hastings isn't even in the top 10 largest schools in the US --
1. Thomas M. Cooley Law School (MI)
3,252
2. Georgetown University (DC)
1,940
3. Harvard University (MA)
1,712
4. Suffolk University (MA)
1,671
5. George Washington University (DC)
1,636
6. Fordham University (NY)
1,516
7. John Marshall Law School (IL)
1,495
8. Brooklyn Law School (NY)
1,490
9. New York Law School
1,480
10. New York University
1,424

226. you can't compare Hastings to schools like Columbia, GULC, Harvard, NYU, Mich, UVA and even Fordham. Hastings is a diploma mill and you know it. It's reputation is on par with the lower Tier-1/Tier 2. It's the American WCL of the west.

227 quite the contrary...its reputation is not on par with the lower T1/T2. In fact, its lawyer/judges reputation in the 2009 USNWR exceeds that of USC, BU, IU-B, UIUC, W&M, Fordham, Bama, U Washington, Ohio State, UC Davis, UGA, and Wisconsin, all of which were ranked above it.

Its reputation as reflected in USWNR greatly exceeds that of American.

Its median LSAT is higher than many of these schools, and its job prospects are considerably better as well as it is located in a top 10 market.

223,

Please reread 225, which states "Because it pops out almost 600 MEDIOCRE classes of attorneys per year."

Does this also explain your LSAT score?

Hastings students not funded by their families or is at the very top of the class are better off quitting than paying that amount of money for a degree that is increasingly worthless.

I don't care what Hastings reputation is or is not--and neither do one's creditors. 219 really made me laugh in arguing about whether midlaw exists in the Bay area. Making 60k or even 75k is light-years away from starting at 160k or even 145k when it comes to paying off a massive debt-load.

As a recent grad from a similarly ranked school, I should know. No pride here: I did only better than average at my school (top third), somehow managed to get a biglaw job, but was laid off last year. Now I'm sitting on $135k in debt. I lucked out and got another job for about $90k after a brief stint on unemployment. After paying my bills I am surviving, but barely. Certainly not getting ahead. There are many things I want to do but cannot afford to. It's not a great way to live.

And there are many in worse shape than me. At least I can keep up with my rent, loan payments and other bills without missing payments and ruining my credit rating. If I hadn't banked as much money as I could during my two years in biglaw, I'd be really screwed.

Now, there isn't even that opportunity for those at lower 1st tier schools who aren't at the very top of their classes. Throw $50k tuition into the mix, and the economics of continuing just aren't rational. Go become a plumber. The pay will be better.

I feel bad for the Hastings grad who can't pass the character and fitness test in NY. That's sad. He probably can't file bankruptcy either.

Ah yes, 230 makes the old 'get yer weldin gogglers boys!' argument. Been waiting on that one for a while.

100k+ in loans for ANY nonT14 law school is a bad idea. That's as true of Fordham and Notre Dame as it is of Hastings. Yet why all the anger at Hastings and not others?

I would not have gone to Hastings if I had thought I could not do it for under 75k debt. I suppose I am lucky in some ways, but others should really reconsider taking out 100k+ lest you wind up like 230 here.

230, I'd be interested to know what law school you deem as having a similar ranking to Hastings. Peoples College of Law? Southern California Institute of Law? Lincoln Law School of Sacramento?

230 is dead on. If you aren't connected, if you attend a school ranked lower than 10, expect to start out at $75k. If you make more, which you might, you should be pleasantly surprised. Those who attend schools ranked 1 through 10, don't expect to have a "bigflaw" job for more than a year or two. If you keep it longer, you should be pleasantly surprised. Save your money. The gravy train may skip the tracks without a moment's notice.

221,

Good luck. You will need it.

I qualified my mid-law statement by saying there was "almost no" mid-law sector; not that there was none. Congrats to your friend who landed the $80k gig; unfortunately, this was not the norm when the economy was doing well, and in this economy . . .

I find it odd/interesting that you site SF police salaries as some reason why lawyer salaries in SF are high. Is there a law I don't know about that says that SF lawyers get paid more than SF police officers?

I at least will applaud your $65k expected salary figure as being more on target than the school's posting of $131k. The gap is quite amazing.

235 - I just cited police salaries as indicators that salaries are higher in general here. If you would like to see a detailed analysis of regional salary variances, check out this site:
http://www.ilrg.com/employment/salaries/#regvar

I think 60-70k is a reasonable expectation for non-OCI Hastings grads ITE, and I don't think that 100k+ in debt is a wise decision for any nonT14, including Hastings.

215 (and everyone else who claims Hastings is not ABA-accredited), explain why it's on all the lists of approved schools on the ABA's website. Explain why it's also on independently compiled lists (like http://www.lawschoolconnections.com/accred.html). In short, post proof or retract. I can't believe this is even an argument.

Hastings 3L/ V5 + $160k secured bitches!!!!!

UC Hastings is getting slammed for being 1st to announce their budget. UCLA and UC Irvine will be priced identically. UC Berkeley will actually be $3-5k higher.

Not saying this is a great price for these schools, but just saying that UC Hastings is not alone. They were just stupid to announce 1st.

UC Hastings is getting slammed for being 1st to announce their budget. UCLA and UC Davis will be priced identically. UC Berkeley will actually be $3-5k higher.

Not saying this is a great price for these schools, but just saying that UC Hastings is not alone. They were just stupid to announce 1st.

Dear UC Hastings law students:

Testicles.

That is all.

Hastings is raising tuition now because it plans to shrink next year's class drastically. LSATs, GPAs, job placement, and faculty-student ratio will all go up. The plan is to put Hastings back in the top 25 where it belongs.

237, now I'm confused. The above ABA link is apparently a list of every school that's been accredited, not just the currently accredited ones. Your link doesn't work-- leads to a 404-- which makes me wonder if you're dealing in bad faith. I am not 100% sure, but I think UC Hastings is unaccredited and has hired a P.R. firm to sow confusion.

242,

lulz at Hastings back in the T25. they couldn't do it 10 years ago when USC was 4x the cost. what makes you think they will do that now that Hastings is 40k in-state?

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244-

"lulz"? Are you a pre-teen girl or what?

I'm just saying what I've heard. So much garbage has been tossed around this thread that I'd thought I'd offer some real information to the students and alumni who are following along.

You seem to be asking the question I answered, but since you're simple I'll break it down a little more:

The Hastings administration is placing a bet that the effect of losing a few top students due to the tuition hike will be more than offset by lopping off the bottom 20% of the class.

For what little it's worth I happen to think that it is a good bet, and I support the measure, if it's carried out the way it has been explained to me. Moreover, I think it's to be commended that one school is actually shrinking class size.

-242

248

lulz =/= lol

lrn2internet noob

'01 Hastings Grad. Made $35,000,000 on Jan '10 $200 Srike calls on aapl last week.

Started with $20,000 as a 1L in Aug/Sept '98.

Now at $71,500,000 net after taxes. Worked four months "BIGLAW?" (it was an Am Law 200 firm), fired b/c I failed the bar.

You bitches don't know what it is to be liquid $50,000,000+

Enjoy billing $360/hour and bragging to your friends/family.

Thanks for your time.

UC Hastings should be forced to change its name to Cal State Hastings. It is more akin to Cal State San Francisco than UCSF, a top 5 medical school.

Very impressive: http://magazine.uchastings.edu/notes/2000

249-
5|_|Ck oN @ \/\//-\R|\/| c0CK
Love,
-242,8

252, that is indeed impressive. It looks like the firm most frequently mentioned is the T10 Farella Braun. Aside from losing accreditation having a bunch of your graduates at some tiny shitbag SF firm is a true sign of prominence.

#13 - How does practicing outside federal court in California make someone TTT? Must be a junior associate posting that supposed revelation. When someone represents HP against Intel or Google against Yahoo in state court they are TTT? Clearly this was posted by someone who doesn't understand basic jurisdictional issues very well. Considering that California has the 5th largest economy in the world, two California corporations suing each other in state court is pretty standard.

Sweet sassy molassey!! My friend from UC Berkeley told me about the bum's rush Hastings students are getting. Why don't they just cut some of those inflated professor salaries?? First the public option was voted down: http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/2009/10/09/public-option-health-care-reform-voted-down-by-democratic-congress-anyone-else-see-the-problem-with-that-headline/ . And now this, is anyone going to be able to afford anything?

California is falling apart and has almost no room for any additional lawyers. Hastings should cut its enrollment in half.

255 - Nah. It doesn't happen much. I'm at GDC LA and the litigation partners here have (when I asked) told me that they have been in California courts once or twice in their entire careers. The big issues are almost always in federal courts. When the matters are large, you'll find your way into federal court. While there are exceptions, they are rare.

When I was deciding which California law school to attend, the deciding factor between UCDavis and UCHastings and was ABA accreditation. Granted, Hastings has far more California alumni than Davis, but I was never going to be able to practice on the east coast or elsewhere with a degree from a non accredited school.

Suggestion to anyone applying to law school that thinks they could possibly leave California (and the reasons to do so keep piling up): Do what I did and do not go to Hastings.

Hey Dolts:

Hastings is ABA-accredited - http://www.abanet.org/legaled/approvedlawschools/public.html.

UC Irvine, however, is not. And yet they have free tuition courtesy of the UC Regents.

At least Hastings, unlike other law schools that have been misstating their graduates' employment and salary statistics for years, is honest with prospective students about accreditation. The Hastings admissions office will openly admit that they are not ABA accredited, but are accredited by the California Bar Associaton. Simply call and ask: 415.565.4623.

Even though Hastings is not the school it was before losing accreditation in the mid 1990s, at least they are honest.

260, that link also doesn't work. Why are people claiming U.C. Hastings is accredited posting links that don't go anywhere? Is it because the school really is unaccredited? See also 237.

43- so the taxpayers are "middle class white folk?" When did middle class blacks, asians, and Hispanics become tax exempt?

43- so the taxpayers are "middle class white folk?" When did middle class blacks, asians, and Hispanics become tax exempt?

58 here.

204 - yes, that's pretty much the size of it. Believe me, there is a lot of scummy work out there for bottom feeders.

129 - you are delusional. Have you not seen the crap writing that lawyers from T20 schools churn out on a regular basis?

156 here.

@224: You're right about the Portland market being provincial. It may be because we're no longer a major corporate center and are the only big legal market in the state. We also have low wages, so people who graduate with T1-sized student loans have tens of thousands of reasons to look for BigLaw jobs somewhere other than Portland.

@262: The link posted by 260 doesn't work because it has a period at the end. If you type it without the terminal period, you'll get to the ABA's page showing that UC-Hastings is approved by the ABA. The link posted by 237 doesn't work for the same reason: it includes a terminal period and parenthesis that shouldn't be there.

90: I think (unconfirmed) that your residency status is determined on your first year....that means if you are non-resident on day one then you are a non-resident for all three years. Someone from my class was bitching about this...he moved back to Texas and was considered a non-resident for all three years of law school because he worked in D.C. for a couple of years.

Wow. The comments section on ATL is worse than I remember.

1) I'm a Hastings grad; 2) I've got a better job than several of my friends who were across the bay; 3) What is this nonsense about the school not being accredited?

People need to find better things to do with their time than this. I understand the economy's tough and there are a lot of unemployed lawyers and soon-to-be jobless law students but... seriously?

I graduated from Hastings two years ago and a lot of my friends went the private firm route (others ended up on the Hill or clerking for district and circuit courts -- standard, really...).

We ran the gamut from top to middle of our class and almost everyone who wanted a big firm job and worked aggressively to get it ended up with a position -- not just in SF but across the country.

This is ridiculous. The tuition hike is absurd and comments on that make sense but that hardly seems to be the focus here.

What the hell is wrong with people?

224 Here:

@156 / 266: Thanks for being candid about the provincialism. I think you're right about the decline of Portland as a corporate center being a driver behind some of the local market patterns. I suspect that's why a lot of the regional firms seem to be pretty conservative in their hiring patterns even in good years.

At the same time, it seems unfortunate that if you're from Portland, and go challenge yourself at a highly ranked school, then you're automatically at a disadvantage when you try to come home (despite getting a great education).

I don't think a school's prestige should guarantee a candidate anything, but it shouldn't be a strike against them if they're serious about coming home.

I am a little confused about what ABA accreditation even confers. My friends (also Hastings grads) now practice law in NY, DC, FL. Does their Hastings degree mean that they cannot practice in those jurisdictions? That is obviously disproven by their practice of law for the last 4 yrs. Also, I heard from GGU alum that GGU was going to lose their accreditation because of low bar passage scores. Hastings has always had high bar passage numbers, so I am perplexed as to why they would have lost their accreditation.

http://patterico.com/2008/02/03/aba-accreditation-will-require-75-bar-passage-rate/

And I agree, the ABA website indicates Hastings IS accredited:

http://www.abanet.org/legaled/approvedlawschools/public.html

So would I believe anonymous commenters or the ABA website? Hmm, let me think on that one...

I wish there were something going on in this thread other than trolls and the feeding of trolls

Hastings is ABA accredited.

A list of ABA accredited law schools in california, listed on the california state bar website, lists hastings.

I went to hastings, they always said they were accredited.

http://www.calbar.ca.gov/state/calbar/calbar_generic.jsp?cid=10115&id=5128#aba

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California,_Hastings_College_of_the_Law#Notable_alumni

I went to Hastings. I got to do hot chicks in the Marina while Stanford students were wresting with the trolls on the Peninsula. We work at the same place now, I'm just better at doing my job than they are.

I also went to Hastings and can confirm what 274 says. I had a better time than my buddies across the bay (and better than those in palo alto) and am making bank. So whatever. This is ridicuslous drivel.

I'm confused. If Hastings is indeed ABA accredited, why are its graduates ineligible to sit for the bar in states other than California? Is it because its reaccredidation was only recent?

I'm confused. If Hastings is indeed ABA accredited, why are its graduates ineligible to sit for the bar in states other than California? Is it because its reaccredidation was only recent?

Hastings is a great school.

Northwestern is also no longer ABA accredited.

Northwestern is approved by the ABA. The link posted above is to the list of approved public law schools. Here is the ABA list of approved private law schools.
http://www.abanet.org/legaled/approvedlawschools/private.html

at 276

Hastings students can sit for the bar in all the states. I have multiple friends who do not work in california and were eligible to sit for their respective states' bars after graduating.

Where are you getting your info from?

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ABA / CBA Accreditation discussion
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As a current UC-Hastings 3L and an elected student representative, I'm disappointed to read that several of our alumni commenting on this board have been kept out-of-the-loop regarding the circumstances surrounding UC-Hastings College of Law losing ABA accreditation. You should demand more from the Hastings administration!

That said, the fact that we are no longer in "good standing" with the ABA is really of no consequence for most of our graduates who chose to practice law in-State. To be clear: UC-HASTINGS IS STILL ACCREDITED BY THE CALIFORNIA BAR ASSOCIATION. As such, our grads are still eligible to sit for the California Bar Exam and even to practice law in the State of California. Moreover, after 2-5 years of practice, our alumni who wish to practice elsewhere are eligible to waive into a dozen or so other jurisdictions, including Minnesota, Oregon, Wyoming, and even the District of Columbia (provided they also obtain at least a 133 on the multistate).

My hope is that the school is forthright with applicants and alumni about the fact that we are in good standing with the CBA. To the extent anyone is interested in seeing what to do to get back with the ABA (I couldn't care less -- I'm happy practing in the Bay area), the law school administration suggests people reach out to the American Bar Association on their website: http://www.abanet.org. You can, of course, also voice your concerns to the law school faculty and administration.

Thanks for your support,
Concerned (but optimistic) student!

There has got to be a way to stop this nonsense.

Who has the time to spam message boards with false information?

283 -- Agreed!

I wish these Hastings students would stop acting as if their school is accredited by the American Bar Association. It's nonsense!

282 - I am an alum and that is exactly why I am incredulous. Losing accreditation is a big f-ing deal, so given that I read about it for the first time in the comments is surprising, at best. I would have expected to read about it front page of the Daily Journal or the Recorder. And why would the ABA website still reflect Hastings as accredited? Are they that much in the stone ages that they can't update their website? How can other no name law schools and even places like Golden Gate still have accreditation and Hastings not? I am confused and will be writing Dean Martinez for verification.

281, 283: probably the best way to make this idiocy go away is to ignore the trolls. It surprises me that people still respond to them.

285 again. Also, when you Google "Hastings" and "accreditation," this website is one of the first to pop up. I would expect the Dean of Hastings (in a press release, or the like) or at least some other reputable legal website or paper to have at least "mentioned" that the oldest law school in California lost accreditation.

Finally, if Above the Law thought it newsworthy enough to report 50K tuition, you would think they would have also written a post about Hastings losing its accreditation too, if it were true. There are too many holes in the "losing accreditation" story. Also, no one has posted any link suggesting Hastings indeed lost accreditation, but I see plenty of links (by the ABA too) that Hastings is still accredited.

285 and 287 (accreditation),

You seem concerned about this, but I think you're making much more of this than you should. This story is twofold. First, and most important, UC-Hastings College of Law is still a member in good standing of the California Bar Association. That means that Hastings graduates are eligible to sit for the California Bar Examination and to join the California State Bar. It also means that graduates who are members of the California Bar can waive into a handful of other jurisdictions after only a few years of practice. Second, yes it's true that we lost our ABA accreditation. But so what? If you're like me and have been practicing for a few years, as you say you have, you are likely eligible to join another state's bar. ABA accreditation should mean very little to you at this point in your career.

Like you, I was concerned when I first read this story. So I called a colleague of mine who sits on the Board of Governor's of the CBA (which has been following this issue very closely). He said that the CBA thinks its silly that Hastings lost its ABA accreditation, and that the CBA is not even remotely considering yanking our membership: he called it a "non-issue." I then contacted the College of Law and had a long discussion with an old faculty advisor who oversaw my law journal note a few years back. He helped to assuage my concerns and convinced me that the faculty and administration are working hard to get our accreditation back, and told me that we are on track to have limited accreditation by the ABA by January 2011.

You really shouldn't be concerned. If you are, contact the College of Law.

Good luck,
Hastings alum (2003).

Poster 289,

I appreciate the light that you've shed on this dark chapter of Hastings history, but think this is much more of a concern than you do.

I'm a 2008 Hastings alumni and member of the California Bar -- I heard about this a while back. Suffice it to say that the College of Law has done a good job of keeping it quiet from alumni; I heard about it first at an alumni event in Fresno. I then contacted the College of Law, but was given the run-around. I next tried the ABA, but got transferred twice and became impatient. Last, I contacted the CBA who quickly confirmed the story. I hope that the law school administration addresses this issue head on.

i'm glad that so many posters are discussing this important point of us losing our accreditation. i know that the bay-area legal community is abuzz about this. i hope that the law school will be a bit more transparent about these problems in the future!

WHAT? WHEN DID WE LOSE OUR ACCREDITATION. THIS IS A BIG DEAL!!!!!

WHAT? WHEN DID WE LOSE OUR ACCREDITATION. THIS IS A BIG DEAL!!!!!

Its just incredible that trolls have this much hate for Hastings. How dumb were you to get rejected from here?

As a current 2L I'm disappointed with the rate hike, since the lower price tag of UC was part of my decision. However, I am very happy here and the school as great professors and most of the people aren't total douchnozzles.

Why would anyone pay $50k/year to go to an unaccredited school? This is absurd: UC-Hastings is a diploma mill, a la Golden Gate. GGU and Hastings should merge, form a cheaper school, and try hard to earn the ABA's respect.

Jeez.

Thanks, 289, you're post is reassuring.

I'm happy that UC-Hastings is in good standing with the California Bar Association, and you've convinced me that this is what really matters. Thanks. I've got to say though that this is both suprising and disappointing. I'm a 1L now and hoped to practice in NYC. I don't mind finding a job locally for a few years, but am a bit disappointed that I cannot apply to the NY Bar, if the posts here are accurate, without practicing in California for 5 years first. Also, do employers in California care about ABA accreditation, or are they more concerned with where a school stands with the CBA.

Thanks for your serious replies,
1L

296: You're screwed.

Question: Does U.S. News and World Report rank unaccredited schools, such as Golden Gate, Hastings, and University of Phoenix-online JD?

Thank you kindly.

297: You're going overboard. Granted UC-Hastings is going downhill and fast -- and this no-ABA-accreditation thing is news to me -- but Hastings remains a far better school than Golden Gate!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I just called at 415-565-4623 just like the commenter said and HASTINGS IS ACCREDITED.

To reiterate the commenters above, look at the ABA website to confirm.

http://www.abanet.org/legaled/approvedlawschools/alpha.html

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

TO: 299
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Either the admission's office is feeding you bull $hit or you are full of $hit!

You're right, Hastings is still accredited. But only by the California Bar Association, NOT the ABA (American Bar Association). The ABA yanked Hastings' accreditation a while back.

The website that you posted has not been updated in a while. But on the bottom of that site, they list the ABA membership number (1-800-285-2221). I called and they confirmed what the posters have been saying: UC-Hastings is no longer accredited by the ABA.

Nice try.

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I've read the last 10 posts or so, and I'm sure that this has already been covered extensively here, but can someone please clarify what specific events led to the ABA revoking the accreditation of the University of California's Hastings College of Law?

It's true. The school is only in good standing with the CBA; not the ABA.

299 is racist.

I'm relatively new to the position of the Recruiting Coordinator at a mid-sized firm in New York City. I've heard of, and we regularly recruit top talent from, several California schools including Stanford, UCLA, UC-Berkley. But I've never heard of Hastings College of Law. This may be because we recruit exclusively from ABA-accredited schools.

Can someone clarifty whether UC-Hastings has applied for provisional admission to the ABA, and if so when? Is Hastings at least a member of the Association of American Law Schools?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California,_Hastings_College_of_the_Law#Notable_alumni

This is insane. I graduated last year. I have tons of friends at hastings. If there was even a whisper of this loss of ABA accreditation at the school it would be all over facebook. You would be able to find other discussions on it by googling it.

The ABA website lists approved schools http://www.abanet.org/legaled/approvedlawschools/alpha.html
No schools are listed as on probation.
Hastings is listed under C for california.

The cal bar website lists hastings under the list of ABA approved california schools
http://www.calbar.ca.gov/state/calbar/calbar_generic.jsp?cid=10115&id=5128#aba

Is this one person trying to start a rumor? I have friends at hastings w NY job offers, if they couldn't practice right away in NY they would have to give up those job offers. This is not happening.

And $100 bucks says all the trolls are just bitter because they didn't get into Hastings.

306, we were classmates (c/o 2008). The news, sadly, is partially true and I have seen it on fb. Hastings is still accredited -- 100% -- but only by the California Bar Association. The American Bar Association yanked our accreditation, although for some reason it does not show up on the ABA website. I was flipping out when one of the partners at my firm mentioned this today, so I contacted the ABA's membership office and they confirmed it, 1-800-285-2221.

I wrote Dean M. about this already.

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307: This is really Eff'd up. I called the ABA and they confirmed this. Why the hell hasn't the College of Law addressed this issue!!!

ANGRY 3L

Although it's ancient history now, back in 1901 the American Association of Law Schools admitted Hastings, Stanford, and Kansas, but rejected Chicago on the ground that Chicago didn't have high enough standards for entering students. See pages 576-577 of the AALS reports.

http://books.google.com/books?id=k3w8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA577&lpg=PA577&dq=%22hastings+law+school%22+approved+%22american+bar+association%22&source=bl&ots=ZEylOmPDE3&sig=JjZu9cf-ZQZmATX6upSRXYq3ifw&hl=en&ei=-cHpSsPdBofatgOkoKziCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CB4Q6AEwBjgK#v=onepage&q=&f=false

I honestly believe that these accreditation rumors are false. I went to Hastings post-1990s and never heard that Hastings had lost its accreditation. Over 20 of my friends moved to New York, DC, Nevada, and Arizona and all of them applied for the bar, took that state's bar, passed, and immediately began practicing. Also, several links (two on the ABAs website and one on the California Bar website with ABA information) both indicate that Hastings is still ABA accredited. There is no reputable website indicating that Hastings lost its accreditation, or actually, no website at all for that matter, other than the comments section of this one. Also, I called Hastings and spoke with three people (Career Services, Admissions, one faculty) that had never heard of this issue. Are the ABA and CalBar websites simply not updated? Are these Hastings employees and hundreds of alum simply in the dark? If anyone has a website about Hastings and how it lost its accreditation, that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Looking for Answers in SF

Can someone tell me whether Harvard Law School is accredited by the ABA? I thought it was approved, but then I found it on the same ABA list as Hastings. After reading the comments above I'm concerned that Harvard isn't accredited either, and that I won't be able to sit for the bar anywhere outside Massachusetts.
http://www.abanet.org/legaled/approvedlawschools/alpha.html

306 here at 307

You mean you wish you were a Hastings grad?

I called the aba 1800 285 2221 which confirmed that hastings is aba approved.

Seriously, stop the ridiculousness.

http://www.prelawhandbook.com/law_school_rankings__1987_1999

Precipitous drop after 1994??????

Adding to the tragedy that these trolls spreading such ridiculous rumors didn't get into Hastings is the fact that they have so much time to post... they are either terrible law students or didn't get into law school at all.

I kinda feel bad for these people now that I think about it.

FWIW, I called the ABA this afternoon and it confirmed that Hastings is no longer in good standing (the ABA's website, for some reason, does not reflect this). I also contacted the CBA this afternoon, which confirmed that Hastings is still in good standing with the State.

I also called. They indicated the webpage is updated less frequently because their I.T. department is downsized ITE. Their paper materials reflect Hasting's true status.

The ABA has an active Twitter account and is able to update its front page daily, but can't update something as big as a law school losing accreditation? Strange priorities for their IT. Weird how the ABA and the CBA can update other parts of their sites, but neither can be bothered to accurately update their pages that reflect Hastings's accred.

317, that is anomalous. Hopefully now that we've brought their attention to the oversight, they'll fix it within the next few days.

aba = no accreditation
cba = accreditation

i don't know what's more pathetic: several hastings students and alumni claiming that their school is still accredited by the aba, or the fact that there are more than 300 posts re: an unaccredited school.

315=316=318=319= loser who didn't get into Hastings...

Sometimes I post replies to myself when I realize I can't do anything else with my life. It's pretty normal, right?

Hastings trolls, you can stop with the accreditation nonsense. Nobody is reading the thread any more, so there's no sense in trying to continue conning people into thinking Hastings is ABA-accredited.

Nor Berkeley, nor UCLA, nor UC Davis, nor the other schools on the ABA list.

@316: Who did you call at the ABA? I need to check to see if Yale lost its accreditation, if I can't rely on the ABA's website.

323: Call 800.285.2221, ask about accreditation and they'll direct you to the proper department. You can also verify with U.C. Hastings admissions, 415.565.4600. If you take the latter option, be very careful to ask about ABA accreditation-- if you just ask if they're accredited they'll say yes and not specify that they're accredited by the California Bar ONLY.

Are Golden Gate, Davis, USF, and Santa Clara accredited by the ABA? Specifically, what about GGU?

Are GGU, USF, SCU, and Davis accredited?

This is the stupidest f&*#ng thread ever-

- HLS '03.

I checked into this further. The ABA is an authorized accrediting agency for law schools, but technically it does not accredit law schools; it approves law schools. A law school that is approved by the ABA becomes an accredited law school.

The people at the part of the ABA that approves law schools assured me today that UC-Hastings is approved by the ABA.

328 is a FLAME. I called the numbers laid out by 324. Hastings is not approved, accredited, or anything else by the ABA. It USED to be, which is the source of much confusion (which Hastings is apparently trying to exploit-- shameful). As explained upthread, it doesn't matter so long as you plan to practice in California, but it is difficult to impossible to practice in other states due to the lack of ABA approval.

198,

Alternate answer: a liar.

@329: 328 here. The ABA number given by 324 is the one you call to order publications or change your membership -- it's the service center, not the HQ. Check with any of the four staff liaisons to the accreditation committee: Bucky Askew, Dan Freehling, Camille LaJorna, or Becky Stretch at 312-988-5000. But why take my word for it? Here's the ABA's own page describing Hastings:
http://officialguide.lsac.org/SearchResults/SchoolPage_PDFs/ABA_LawSchoolData/ABA4342.pdf
Note that it's the ABA -- not just Hastings -- that says the school has been ABA-approved since 1939.

@329: 328 here. The ABA number given by 324 is the one you call to order publications or change your membership -- it's the service center, not the HQ. Check with any of the four staff liaisons to the accreditation committee: Bucky Askew, Dan Freehling, Camille LaJorna, or Becky Stretch at 312-988-5000. But why take my word for it? Here's the ABA's own page describing Hastings:
http://officialguide.lsac.org/SearchResults/SchoolPage_PDFs/ABA_LawSchoolData/ABA4342.pdf
Note that it's the ABA -- not just Hastings -- that says the school has been ABA-approved since 1939.

@331/332: 329 probably asked "Is Hastings accredited" and whoever answered checked under H and didn't see Hastings, without realizing that the ABA indexes Hastings under C for California, University Of. If he or she had asked "is Berkeley accredited," the answer would also have been no, because the ABA indexes Berkeley under C. It's a typical 1L research mistake, nothing evil.

331-333 are Hastings trolls. Look, guys, before you invest your future in this school or hire anybody, call the ABA yourself and verify rather than trying to decide which anonymous comments to believe. The ABA is quite upfront that Hastings lost accreditation-- they know you're talking about UC Hastings, probably because of the uptick in calls over the past few days, so there's no chance for confusion. Hasting's PR company is getting desperate.

334's a troll. The ABA is upfront on the phone and on its website that UC-Hastings is accredited.

Okay, look, after three hundred plus comments with conflicting information I didn't know who to believe. I called the numbers above, and I talked to Stacy at the ABA, 1-800-285-2221. She said that Hastings IS accredited, but ONLY by the State Bar of California NOT the ABA. I specified and made sure she knew I was talking about the school in California that's part of the UC system and she confirmed. Call for yourself if you're unsure.

Hm. I talked to Ms. Holmes (312-988-5000), who works at the ABA for the Committee on Legal Education, and she said that Hastings is approved by the ABA.

I seem to recall that maybe 10 or 15 years ago, UC-Hastings boycotted the US News & World Report law school rankings, and as a result was unranked by US News for a while. It sounds as if we have some people who confuse US News with the ABA.

So to summarize: the ABA has two webpages that say that the ABA has approved Hastings.
Some anonymous trolls say it isn't, but can't find even a single webpage in support.
Case closed.

So to summarize: The people saying Hastings isn't accredited are encouraging you to call and verify for yourself. The trolls saying Hastings is accredited want you to take it on faith. Which is more consistent with somebody telling you the truth?

Case closed.

Looks to me like the people saying it is accredited are pointing to a name and a telephone number at the ABA, just like the people who say it isn't accredited. The difference is that the people who say it is accredited have also given us links to two published ABA sites that say Hastings is accredited. The people who say it isn't accredited haven't found a single published source so far. Case very closed.

To the stupid morons who keep insisting that Hastings lost its ABA accreditation, Hastings has never lost its ABA accreditation, EVER! Hastings also has the number 2 Moot Court ABA National Appellate Advocacy Team in the country. All you have to do is a simple Google search. The people who are coming on this site spreading this ridiculous rumor are probably people who couldn't get accepted into Hastings in the first place.

Even in this tough economy, Hastings grads are still getting big law jobs. The 3Ls I know are not stressed at all. They're sitting on some very lucrative job offers.

I didn't know who to believe, so I called the numbers laid out above. Hastings is indeed NOT ABA accredited. Check for yourself by calling the ABA. I'm pretty surprised.

@336 and 343: I called the number that 336 gave, posed my question, was transferred to the legal education and approval department. The woman who answered assured me that (1) UC-Hastings is approved by the ABA, and (2) no one named Stacy works in that department.

Um, I called the number and Stacy says you're a liar.

http://abovethelaw.com/2009/11/super_law_school_rankings.php

@345: Try talking to someone who works in the legal education and approval department, and not someone who works for the sales department. There are undoubtedly many fine Stacys (Stacies?) at the ABA, but not one is in the department that approves law schools.

http://www.uchastings.edu/site_files/newsletter/eNewsletterNov.html

Hastings' website said "The ABA will visit Hastings early in 2008 as part of the accreditation process, and we welcome your thoughts on curriculum, faculty, student body, support services, alumni and community relations, and any other subjects related to the school."