Some days, it feels like trying to help prospective law students is like trying to stop lemmings from jumping off of a cliff. The ABA Journal reports:
Applications tripled in February after the Southern New England School of Law merged with the University of Massachusetts, creating the first public law school in the state.
Looking only at February data, the school has received triple the number of applications over the same month last year, the Herald News reports. Overall, applications at the school have jumped 132 percent so far for the 2010 school year, with 123 would-be students seeking admission.
Have I taught you nothing? Don’t you wanna-be UMass lawyers care about yourselves? How can I help you if you won’t lift a finger to help yourselves?
The Boston Herald reports:
A “robust recruitment effort” will begin in the next few weeks, the announcement said.
The UMass law school will initially enroll 278 students, slightly higher than its enrollment this year. Enrollment will grow slightly each year, reaching 559 students in fall 2017.
I heard a strange noise. It was… screaming. Some kind of screaming, like a child’s voice … Lambs. The lambs were screaming. First I tried to free them. I… I opened the gate to their pen, but they wouldn’t run. They just stood there, confused. They wouldn’t run. They wouldn’t run.
Would-Be Students Clamor to Apply at New UMass Law School [ABA Journal]
UMass Law applications soar after approval [Boston Herald]
Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Southern New England/ UMass Law School
How long until the Red Sox start playing at “UMass Law School Park”?
123 people applied in February? Hardly a big deal, although it’s clear Elie fears further competition from the low end of the legal spectrum.
Tell David to get in the snow cave
2 – is exactly right. the only people that keep calling for less schools and students are ivy turds wanting to protect their inflated salaries.
2 – is exactly right. the only people that keep calling for less schools and students are ivy turds wanting to protect their inflated salaries.
LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOY JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Unreal.
4&5 – Could YOU BE any dumber? Everyone in the profession, regardless of their alma, ought to be worried about this issue.
Also, Elie, this is a funny piece. Well done.
2 – is exactly right. the only people that keep calling for less schools and students are ivy turds wanting to protect their inflated salaries.
8 – if you’re good you will get paid if you’re not you shouldn’t get paid. more competition the better it is.
The antitrust division needs to investigate the entire law industry.
That school will be covered in the sharts of chicks from Boston soon enough. Don’t worry @5.
What a dump, thank god for rankings.
- Western New England School of Law Secure
@4, 5, 9 : No, if Ivy “turds” cared, they would be calling for “fewer schools and students.” Only those who attend TTT schools, and hence don’t understand basic grammar, call for “less schools and students.”
8, do you understand how market segmentation works? If Tata sold thousands of Nano cars for $1,000 each, do you think Mercedes or Lexus are quaking in their boots? Is Jean Georges worried about Subways opening across the street?
If you’re worried about competition from TTTs, you might be a TTT yourself.
What is the world coming to?! If Elie can’t pay off his HARVARD loans what chance do these poor saps have?!
Seriously…www.mydebtorsprison.com
-Ivy League lawyer/Debtor’s Prison Inmate #0010987
Instead of owing 200K in loans with no job, these grads will owe 100K with no job. Vlad.
Legal education is a business; however, unlike a trade school diploma, the value of a law degree these days is sub-zero. The fact that more lambs are running into the slaughterhouse is proof positive that this is the worse generation of humankind. I am not surprised more imbeciles are applying to law school? Why? After all, Commissar Obama told people to go back to school, learn a new trade (read: get off the unemployment rolls that are making my administration look bad) and re-tool for the bright post-recession future that is on it’s way. This law school applications increase is akin to the subprime mortgage mess when people were borrowing against artificial equity in their homes. The house of cards will fall hard on these poor brutes that continue to mortgage their life for a taste of the “prestige” behind the legal profession. Here is a practitioner’s tip for folks applying to law school or who are newly minted lawyers: the prestige left this profession when I retired. The joke is on you.
Can I talk now?
TYPICAL ELIE POST: yadda yadda yadda…gay marriage…yadda yadda yadda…debt…yadda yadda yadda…law school.
TYPICAL LAT POST: yadda yadda yadda…gay republicans…yadda yadda yadda…john yoo…yadda yadda yadda…supreme court clerks.
TYPICAL KASH POST: yadda yadda yadda…craigslist…yadda yadda yadda…sex…yadda yadda yadda…craigslist and sex.
quid pro quo, Clarice
123 applicants represents a 132% increase in applications? Meaning (and the Herald story confirms) only 53 people applied there last year? Even TTT graduates like me can make fun of this one…
I suppose I should know the answer to this, but is the Southern New England School of Law accredited by the American Bar Association and a member in good standing of the Association of American Law Schools?
22, epic fail. It means that only 53 applied there in the MONTH OF FEBRUARY. A quick google search shows that SNESL has over 250 total students at a time, so obviously more than 53 had to apply over the course of the year. See, e.g., http://www.citytowninfo.com/school-profiles/southern-new-england-school-of-law
With skills like that, you’re a shoe-in for the next ATL EIC. Let me be the first to congratulate you. Now, go back to studying for remedial torts.
22 = reading comprehension fail
hahahahahaha
There are virtually NO law jobs in Massachusetts right now. None. The problem isn’t competition – the problem is that there isn’t even enough work to go around for people already admitted. These kids are applying without even looking at the job market, or else they think they’re special and the market conditions won’t affect them. And when they get out, they’ll just be adding more water to the swamp.
You idiots all seem to forget: in a town with one lawyer that lawyer will starve; in a town with two lawyers, the two lawyers will earn a good living for three lawyers.
One useless person is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a Congress [or a law school].
-John Adams
Are any of you lawyers? What good does it do to report “applications” for one month; the month of February? It is a ridiculous statistic. Who is to say whether the school help back received applications in January to get this stat. America has a long road ahead in fixing its debt and other probelms if this is the “best” of society out there. Please read this, and all media reports, with a more critical analytical eye.
There is no good argument for creating more law schools. If you believe that there is, then one of two things is happening: (1) you are from a ranked school and you lack perspective regarding the difficulty of getting a job from an unranked school, or (2) you are from an unranked school and you are offended by this premise. I am from an unranked school that has a graduating class that is about the same size as the one at UMass. Even with so few students, I am worried about even 1/3 of them getting jobs (regardless of traditional indicators like class rank and journal experience). How do you justify schools like Cooley that are admitting thousands of students a year? If you are in it for the money, get out… My brother drives a truck for a landfill and makes about $10K more a year than most grads from unranked law schools (seriously, he does). If you are in it for the prestige, then consider that there is not much prestige involved in being a struggling sole practitioner, who cannot pay off his/her student loans. It is too easy for people who are just not going to be successful at practicing law to get a law degree. I am sure that everybody reading this can think of at least one successful attorney from an unranked school (I am hoping that I will be one of them). But what about my classmates who will never have a prayer at repaying the 6 figure debt that they are incurring? Do you not think that this is a serious problem? When PhD programs notice that jobs are scarce, they limit the size of their cohorts. When law schools notice that jobs are scarce, they buy baseball stadiums. Increasing educational opportunities for students who want to be lawyers implies that there will be a market for them when they graduate. Unfortunately, that is just not the case.
Completely wrong 29. I’m positive these numbers are for the whole year.
- 22
/COOLEY ‘12 SECURE.
I received admission to various law schools around the month of October back when I applied 2 years ago. This doesn’t make any sense to report on February applications.
CHECK YOU PET WOLF
This used to be a blog about the legal profession. Now it’s a bog about… i dunno. Elie’s desire to have picked a different path? Kash seems down on law, too. Can’t you guys find a blogger who is actually interested in the profession, not one who became a blogger because they hated being, and/or couldn’t cut it as, a lawyer?
34 this site provides very relevant salary information and I would venture to guess the majority of its readers focus on those posts but don’t comment. In fact, I’d bet there is an inverse relationship b/w # of comments and number of story views, unless the story has to do with a scandal at an elite law school.
30, FTW. “My brother drives a truck for a landfill and makes about $10K more a year than most grads from unranked law schools.”
May God have mercy on their clueless souls. How stupid can you be???
2-dead on. this is getting old. lower tier students always faced an uphill battle. they should know this. if they choose to go anyway it’s their own fault if they graduate out of competition. i go to ucla and dont feel the least bit threatened by a La Verne student with similar grades. you make your own opportunities. stop trying to close the door behind you.
I sorta do not blame them for applying to UMASS, it beats Suffolk, NESL, and whatever for tution cost by 40%. I have hired Suffolk Law grads and they are all over the place in MA, too many, like cockroaches. Oh well, Massachusetts is a hugely over-lawyered state with I can’t even count the number of law schools, accredited and unaccredited, so many. The attorney job market is strange, the laws of supply and demand are bending back on themselves creating phenomenon only seen around black holes, why is everyone fighting to get into Dante’s Inferno?
At some point these ever exponentially increasing law grads are going to hit critical mass, and I do not know what will happen. It is frigging historic, the current system cannot sustain itself and every year it gets pushed more and more. So and so says “well we need another law school here because we do not have a law school for people that like extra cheese on their pizza”, and voila the Extra Cheese Pizza Law School is created to address that terrible deficiency in legal education, Extra Cheese Pizza Law School of course has more applicants than planned, and increases admissions. New law classes will be taught at the nearby college football stadium over the jumbotron. Is a 50,000 person class size pushing it?
What kind of frivilous society supports educating and bank rolling law students that will have no shot at meaningful legal employment?
39 – illiterate retard
it’s not closing the door behind you, it’s opening your eyes to what’s in front of you. the question is: fundamentally, do you see a problem with offering exponentially more seats for law students than there is need for lawyers? it is certainly up for debate, but i think that it requires a more thorough consideration than “if they choose to go anyway it’s their own fault if they graduate out of competition.” forget about fault… what is the purpose? if it is solely for the schools to profit, rather than contribute to the profession, then i have a fundamental problem with that.
“Have I taught you nothing? Don’t you wanna-be UMass lawyers care about yourselves? How can I help you if you won’t lift a finger to help yourselves?”
Thank you, Elie, for finally recognizing the remaining base of your readership. Long live ATL!
I really like the rigorous recruitment plans and gradual increase of enrollment. It shows that the law school is really in touch with reality.
They should rename the law school. I would call it “Bernie Madoff College of Law” to reflect the values of the school.
If these “TTT” students are so stupid compared to “T14″ students, then what are people so afraid of? Losing to them? Are they trespassing on something that you are entitled to? There’s your problem.
In the courtroom the only thing that matters is what you know and what you can do. I’m not scared of the competition.
So long as there isn’t some “law student/law school” bailout, then I say let people live with their mistakes…or profits.
I would hire #1 at UMass who knows how to do something over an ivy slacker who is steeped in international law and gender studies.
Love the Silence of the Lambs quote.
23 – Meme fail. That hasn’t been funny since the second time someone used it, and it’s even less funny when we KNOW UMass isn’t accredited (yet).
shuttup fags
Aw, 48 is sore because s/he got rejected from UMass
39 is the dumbest serious comment I’ve ever read on ATL.
I kinda liked the idea of Extra Cheese Pizza Law School. But only if it was East Coast pizza.
I kinda liked the idea of Extra Cheese Pizza Law School. But only if it was East Coast pizza.
I kinda liked the idea of Extra Cheese Pizza Law School. But only if it was East Coast pizza.
“If these “TTT” students are so stupid compared to “T14″ students, then what are people so afraid of?”
Well, see, there’s this class of people out there who get pissed at others, not not because they’re afraid of them or are assessing the competition, but merely because they don’t like institutions conning kids out of $150k and 3 years to leave them with no job prospects.
I realize such motives may be anathema to many lawyers (and other sociopaths), but honestly they do exist.
If the schools were honest about career stats, I’d be in the “it’s your own damn fault” camp, but people usually get tossed into jail for doing what many law schools do.
Everybody here keeps waiting for the market to correct itself. You’re a prospective student, you look at stats that show the overwhelming majority of grads are getting much better job prospects than you currently have…exactly what do you expect to happen? Yes, I realize some of you will still blame them for then believing these stats, but, again, people who aren’t cynical sociopaths (try to think like someone who isn’t one for a few seconds) generally assume, correctly, that those who engage in this level of fraud find their way to being heavily fined and/or put behind bars.
Until that last part changes, and this normal course of events begins to apply to law school administrators, nothing else will.
17 and 26 ftw. Hopefully this dump will put downward pressure on the fucking liquid piece of shit that is Northeastern.
- Northeastern unsecure and one breath from defaulting on $180k in student loans.
I just put a corn can up my anus
24/25 – Your reading comprehension fail, not mine.
“Looking only at February data, the school has received triple the number of applications over the same month last year, the Herald News reports. Overall, applications at the school have jumped 132 percent so far for the 2010 school year, with 123 would-be students seeking admission.”
Do you HYS Secure geniuses not understand the meaning of the word “Overall”? February applications tripled, meaning they jumped by 200%. Overall (meaning February plus all previous months), applications jumped by 132%, to 123 applications.
Direct quote from the original, Herald News story:
“The law program, which will be established at the Southern New England School of Law, has received 123 applications for the fall, compared to 53 who applied to Southern New England last year.”
TTT Secure.
- 22
Is there a reason they plan to grow their enrollment so drastically over the next decade? A chronic shortage of lawyers in MA? Or is it just to get all of that sweet, sweet Stafford loan money they can get their mitts on?
can’t be any worse than going to Suffolk or New England School of Law — at least you won’t be paying $40K/year
t6 grad here, it’s not being afraid of the competition. i have enough competition from t14 schools, and those will always be around. it’s pitying them, because at least i’m in the running for a job, whereas they’ll probably end up unemployed no matter what they do. maybe you think i have my head up my ass, but it’s empathy
CHECK YOU SHORT BUS
Why don’t all of us, including the deferred, unemployed, laid-off lawyers, pool our limited resources and start our own law school?
@6. Lol. I really did. And people are now looking at me.
Lemmings are not suicidal. It’s just a myth coming from a Disney film.