My Twitter War With Law Professors Shows Why We Can't Have Nice Things

Eventually I succumbed to engaging with some of these law professors on Twitter.

Elie Engages With Law Professors On Twitter

Elie engages with law professors on Twitter.

A bunch of people tweeted or emailed me the Steven Davidoff Solomon article proclaiming “Law School a Solid Investment, Despite Pay Discrepancies.” I tried to ignore it because the premise is the same tired, largely debunked proposition that only law administrators and Cooley grads still believe in: “Law School is GOOD! Because despite the overwhelming evidence of debt and sadness, we can all agree that going to law school is better than serving mystery nuggets at a truck stop.”

I mean, what can I say to that? “Yes? Depending on whether you like hanging with truckers.” Professor Solomon quotes the controversial study by fellow law prof Michael Simkovic claiming that a law degree was worth “one million dollars.” That study was blasted by me and criticized by many others interested in legal education reform back in 2013. Referencing it now, without noting the massive critiques to Simkovic’s work, is a cheap trick that relies on your reader’s ignorance of the issue. Why would I put down a taco to write about another article that risks misleading prospective law students who can’t Google?

Note: I didn’t even mind the Solomon article. Honestly, at this point, WHO CARES if there is still a dedicated group of law school cheerleaders assuring us that law school is a “solid” investment, like they’re Kevin Bacon at the end of Animal House? THE MARKET HAS SPOKEN. Law school applications and enrollment have declined dramatically over the past few years, and there is a massive brain drain underway among admitted students. As the recession took hold it became important to me, and a bunch of other people, to expose the lower-ranked law schools for what they are — and by and large, that battle has been won. It was won a long time ago. This “debate” is soooo 2010. The serious work now is not to explain the problem, but to figure out what to do about it.

Still, the law professors pushing Solomon’s narrative as some kind of rebuttal to the Noam Scheiber piece about the horror of Valparaiso Law (and my commentary on Scheiber’s article) are damn annoying. It’s like walking past a newsstand in a subway station when all you want is WiFi and thinking “Why the f**k are you still here?”

Eventually I succumbed to engaging with some of these law professors on Twitter. In response to their calls to add Solomon’s article to my write-up of the Scheiber piece, I offered this:

Sponsored

And it was on.

Lat tried to play nice.

Sponsored

I did not.

And it escalated the way Twitter inevitably does.

While I was having my tawdry flame war, Noam Scheiber was having a much more intellectually decisive interaction with Michael Simkovic himself. His Facebook post is too long to paste in full, but give it a read if you prefer data to opinions. My favorite exchange from Scheiber is this one:

Student default rates have been lower in recent years than in other decades because the rules on federal student debt have changed. Thanks to income-based repayment–particularly the 2012 Pay as You Earn Program–there is no reason for anyone to default. All they have to do to avoid default in most cases is pay 10 percent of their monthly discretionary income. It would make no sense to default under these rules.

But even though former law students aren’t defaulting, that doesn’t mean they’re on the path to timely repayment. Among other things, their debt levels are rising quite significantly. In addition to the recent numbers I cited in my story, this New America study shows the median level of debt for law school borrowers rising from about $90,000 in 2008 to over $140,000 in 2012.

It’s not worth reviewing the controversy about your work on law graduate earnings here, since the criticisms are well-established. But suffice it to say, I think it’s strange to respond to a claim that the economic prospects of people graduating after the recession have fundamentally changed relative to those who graduated before the recession with a study that only includes people who graduated prior to 2009.

You’d think that in 2016, legal education reformers and law professors would be on the same page. In the end, all reformers want is for law school to become a viable economic option for the thousands of students who are interested in law. We need MORE lawyers: lawyers who can serve low-income clients, lawyers who can stem the tide of prosecutorial overreach, lawyers who bridge the gap in intellectual firepower between private firms and undermanned government agencies. But you can’t get those lawyers when they graduate from low-account diploma mills with $200,000 of debt and no ability to pass the bar exam.

Why are there so many law professors still arrayed against meaningful reform? Why can’t we have nice things? Why are they fighting with me, instead of asking themselves why so many potential law students have rejected their product? I think there are three reasons, in order from least problematic to most:

1. Stupidity. I think that there are honestly some professors who were are very good at explaining Pennoyer v. Neff, but very bad at understanding the bimodal salary distribution curve. There are professors who just don’t understand what a killing blow it is to be $200,000 in debt and unable to pass the bar, or at least don’t understand how law school decisions cause that outcome as opposed to the mere personal inadequacies of the student. There’s probably a nicer word than “stupid” to describe these people, maybe it reads as “oblivious” to you, but in 2016 it reads as straight dumb to me.

Of course, most law professors aren’t dumb, so I have to consider more sinister motives.

2. Selfishness. Assuming that most law professors are fundamentally capable of understanding what’s going on, even if they don’t want to admit it, it’s still a leap for them to risk anything to fix it. While I think legal education reform is a way to save law schools in the long run, in the short term any meaningful reforms will likely result in the loss of jobs. At many law schools, reform already has.

As Lat mentioned, being a law professor is a great job. Why would you risk that sweet deal by agitating for reform? Isn’t your time better spent desperately defending your gravy train? If you disrespect your own students so much that you think their options were going $200,000 in debt OR doing nothing of significance with their three years and good credit ratings, it’s even easier to think that it’s a “solid investment” for them, since their investment is beyond great for law professors.

I think base selfishness explains some of the most vocal cheerleaders, but not the “silent majority” that kind of agree with those guys but don’t like to say so aloud because they know that they’ll look stupid (see point 1, supra). So I try to empathize with those professors and come to this.

3. Fear. It is hard to admit that the business model of your industry is failing. It took decades for print media to recognize the challenge of online media. It took years for online media to recognize the challenge of social media. How many years did Radio Shack, Tower Records, or Blockbuster hang around telling stockholders that they were still “solid investments”?

It takes real courage to admit that the way that you’ve done things is wrong, the market is onto your game, and it’s time to massively change what you are selling.

When I get into Twitter fights with law professors, I don’t see that kind of courage. Instead, I smell the fear. Noam Scheiber’s case study of one flailing law school punctured the little bubble these guys try to live in, and so they lashed out like wounded animals in so many ivory corners.

Luckily, reform does not require the courage of all men and women in the business of legal education. It takes only a few people with courage and vision to turn Blockbuster into Netflix.

Law School a Solid Investment, Despite Pay Discrepancies [New York Times]
An Expensive Law Degree, and No Place to Use It [New York Times]

Earlier:Another Study Offering Misleading Statistics On The Value Of A Law Degree
Vivisection Of A Dying Law School


Elie Mystal is the managing editor of Above the Law Redline, the Legal Editor of More Perfect. He likes tacos. Reach him on Twitter: @ElieNYC.