Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.” In contrast, Thomas Jefferson School of Law does not tremble before the toothless authority of the ABA. In fact, the school feels free to respond to utter institutional FAIL with peevish blame-shifting. Either TJSL has a serious problem with its admissions standards or it fails students once they arrive. Or some combo platter thereof. Does it matter? Let’s all stipulate that this is a “bad thing.” But what, if anything, should be done?
There are obviously a range of legal/societal stances toward the treatment of “bad things.” Bad things like cigarettes are legal but have mandatory warning labels. Bad things like the New York Lottery are just a Darwinian tax on the ignorant. Predatory subprime mortgage lenders are subject to a patchwork of federal and state laws. Ponzi schemers face criminal fraud charges. Where a law school charging $120,000 for a dubious product fits into the scheme of bad things is open to debate. So we reader-sourced the question. Last week, we conducted a research poll asking:
• Should the ABA impose national minimum LSAT and/or GPA standards for entry into accredited law schools?
• In what range should the LSAT & GPA cutoffs be?
• Should law schools lose their accreditation if their graduates’ bar passage rates fall below a certain threshold?
• Below what level should a school’s accreditation be in jeopardy?
After the jump, you tell us whether and where the lines should be drawn….
Continue reading “ATL Readers to ABA: Enforce Stricter Standards”
Somebody got a hold of a password-protected report from LSAC that discusses the state of law school applications.
Do you want to hear the good news?
Continue reading “The Early Numbers on Law School Applications”
There are a lot of unhappy lawyers. We all know that. Part of their discontent is due to the fact that many young people go to law school who may not want to be lawyers, or do not take the time during law school to figure out what type of practice best fits their personality and goals. It was for this reason that I was so excited to learn about Steven Harper’s class for pre-law students. Getting to potential law students before they take on an obscene amount of debt is one way to prevent accidental lawyers.
But what about those individuals who actually want to be lawyers, but due to certain biases are not able to pursue their dreams? The answer is the same: get to them in college….
Continue reading “Size Matters: Diversity in Small Firms”
Kim Kardashian
* With AT&T’s T-Mobile deal falling apart, in-house lawyer Wayne Watts could be heard singing, “it’s my merger and I’ll cry if I want to,” before more whining to the FCC. [DealBook / New York Times]
* Build us a border fence, and then get the f**k over it. Arizona lawmakers are soliciting the public for donations to keep out the people who would work at low cost to build it. [New York Daily News]
* Ever wonder what’s preventing greater diversity in the law? Apparently the problem is pre-law counselors with advising skills that are crappier than minority LSAT scores. [National Law Journal]
* ‘Til death (and billable hours) do us part: British firms are paying for employees’ divorces. Biglawyers await the day this gets picked up America. [Press Association]
* The star of this year’s Black and Blue Friday was the not-so-wise Latina who decided it was a good idea to pepper-spray her Xbox competition. Best deal ever? No charges brought. [CNN]
* It looks like Kim Kardashian got her Christmas wish early this year. Her soon-to-be ex-husband will not be suing her for $10M over his portrayal on her new reality show. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
Way back in 2008, I noted with skepticism the University of Michigan’s “Wolverine Scholars” Program. I wasn’t the only one. The initiative allowed Michigan undergraduates with very high GPAs to get into Michigan Law without having to take the LSAT.
The program seemed like a pretty obvious attempt to game the U.S. News rankings. It’s so obvious that the now disgraced former Dean of Admissions for Illinois Law, Paul Pless, who had a similar program at his school, had this to say about it:
I started a new program for U of I undergrads to apply in their junior year and we don’t require the LSAT. We have additional essays and an interview instead. That way, I can trap about 20 of the little bastards with high GPA’s that count and no LSAT score to count against my median. It is quite ingenious.
Pless was talking about Illinois’s iLeap program, which was substantially similar to the Wolverine Scholars program at Michigan.
The Pless quote came out earlier this month, as the admissions director was being ushered under the bus by Illinois Law as the “lone gunman” for its embarrassing admissions scandal.
With the spotlight on a Big Ten school that manipulated admissions statistics for years, Michigan very quietly canceled its Wolverine Scholar Program.
There’s been much less fanfare about the end of the program than there was about its start. In fact, we obtained FOIA documents that contain various emails from Michigan Law Dean Evan Caminker and Dean of Admissions Sarah Zearfoss.
They talk about the program, and the how “the blogs” are covering it….
Continue reading “The Life and Death of the Michigan ‘Wolverine Scholars’ Program”
I am a maverick and a reformer so I started a new program for U of I undergrads to apply in their junior year and we don’t require the LSAT. We have additional essays and an interview instead. That way, I can trap about 20 of the little bastards with high GPA’s that count and no LSAT score to count against my median. It is quite ingenious.
– Paul Pless, former dean of admissions at the University of Illinois College of Law, in a 2008 email about iLEAP, a program that offered early admission to University of Illinois undergraduates with high GPAs (and no LSAT scores).
(The reaction of the other party to the correspondence, after the jump.)
Continue reading “Quotes of the Day: Quite Ingenious — and Quite Busted”
Today, via Craigslist, we have a guy who maybe needs to give up the ghost on going to law school. He’s probably a very nice person who is a credit to his family, but the experience might not be for him. Hopefully he figures that out before somebody takes him up on his $10,000 tutoring offer.
Yeah, there’s a guy on Craigslist who is willing to pay a private tutor $10,000 if he or she can help him get a 160 or better on the LSAT. To this point, he’s taken two test prep courses and studied using various books, but hasn’t broken 155.
At least the kid has the good sense to not go to a law school that would be thrilled to have him at 155. But I think he should continue acting with self-restraint and find something better to do with his ten grand….
Continue reading “Sometimes All the Money in the World Won’t Help You on the LSAT”
* LSAC might start auditing the LSAT scores and GPAs that law schools report to the ABA. Now, which agency is going to handle their too good to be true employment stats? [National Law Journal]
* Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s lawyer asked a judge to ban the word “bomb” from his trial. The judge denied it, because, well, he’s called the Underwear Bomber. Duh. [New York Daily News]
* “Don’t sanction me, bro!” Paul Ceglia’s lawyers are begging the court to pass on Gibson Dunn’s request for discovery sanctions after multiple delays. Like. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]
* In a continuing battle over the market for slutty children’s dolls, Quinn Emanuel may have scored a big one for Barbie with this tentative ruling to toss MGA’s antitrust suit. [Washington Post]
* Apparently it’s unprofessional to put your colleagues on blast for allegedly having “sexual torture chambers” in their basements. Who knew? [Chicago Tribune]
* It’s also unprofessional to slap a man in the face during a deposition. And to think, this came after a confrontation about the impropriety of finger-pointing. [The State]
Om nom nom.
Ah, the LSAT. For those of you who are still considering the practice of law, this test should be the first indication of the epic toolishness you will encounter when you enter the hallowed halls of a law school. This is usually where the bragging begins, folks. Your “friends” not only studied harder than you did (they didn’t), but they also got better scores than you did (they didn’t).
But worse than all of the bragging is the fact that some — but not all — people will get special accommodations for the LSAT (and law school exams, and the bar exam, and every other exam, ad infinitum). These special little snowflakes will get extra time and other perks to take the same exam that you’re taking.
The question is, who really deserves these special testing accommodations? Boobs or brains?
Continue reading “Boobs v. Brains: Who Wins When It Comes to LSAT Accommodations?”
If you want to go to law school but can’t get into an ABA-accredited one, something is wrong with you. Sorry. Maybe you were raped by a scantron sheet when you were young or a freak boating accident left you unable to read brochures, but something is not right if you can’t get into law school but really want to.
And I really don’t care if you had some kind of culturally difficult upbringing or have some kind of trumped-up attention disorder or if you are a deaf-freaking-mute, because I’m sure that intelligent abused orphaned deaf-mutes suffering from ADHD with Daddy issues can easily get into accredited law schools, given the totally minimum barriers to entry into such programs. You have to fill out some forms and take a multiple choice exam without scoring significantly worse than random chance, and you’re in!
A while ago, The Economist came out with an article that we’re just circling back to now. It talked about a book written by Clifford Winston and Robert Crandall, of the Brookings Institution, and Vikram Maheshri, of the University of Houston, in which they argue that there is actually an undersupply of American attorneys, due to the stiff barriers to entry into the profession.
I’m not sure that these guys understand that the barriers to entry — such as they are — aren’t just there to protect lawyer salaries. Lawyers are trying to protect the consumers of legal services too…
Continue reading “Lawyer Undersupply? Barriers To Entry Protect Idiot Consumers Of Legal Services Too.”
Why your 3,500 sq ft wife shouldn't be driving a Lexis.
* Maybe we need law school law firms in the first place because law school professors — the ones who drill law into our heads for 3 years — are “incapable of practicing law.” [Adjunct Law Prof Blog]
* “Boss, I’m stuck in traffic. No, I’m literally stuck.” Driving your car into wet concrete is a pretty great way to perpetuate the stereotype that women can’t drive. Thanks for that. [Daily Mail]
* Star Wars Old Republic ships in November, so clients better get used to the old, “I’m too busy playing video games to attend to your matter” automated message. [Legal Profession Blog]
* If you’re Asian American and you want to be a lawyer, according to Lat it would be a good idea to have some social skills (not just study skills). [Northwest Asian Weekly]
* If you’re still thinking of taking the LSAT in October, get a leg up on the competition by getting inside the mind of one of the nerds who helped write questions for the test. [LSAT Blog]
* Proofreading is probably something that we here at Above the Law could stand to actually do every once in a while. [What About Clients?]
* Apparently, Tom Coburn forgot about the “tremendous advantage” he received from rich daddy Coburn of the “O.W. Coburn School of Law” Coburns. [Gawker]
* Alabama, I think you might be doing it wrong. Men aren’t supposed to get hosed at abortion clinics. [Constitutional Daily]
What’s going to be funny for me is that I’ll now be able to tell laypeople that most prospective law students are like Vinny from the Jersey Shore.
Yes, we’ve reported before on Vinny Guadagnino’s law school aspirations. We’ve looked at the Jersey Shore star’s GPA. We’ve listened to him opine on why going to law school is just more work than he’s willing to do right now. I don’t really know why everybody is so fascinated with what one random reality TV star will do if and when his fame runs its course. Maybe it’s because people think the Jersey Shore people are “dumb” while people who go to law school are “smart”?
Anyway, mine is not to wonder why: Vinny is now talking about his LSAT score, and his take on things is not going to sound strange to anybody who has spent time around recent law school applicants.
If he does go to law school, maybe he’ll be able to help his Shore castmates with their recent legal entanglements. Oh that’s right, this post is a full on mash-up of Jersey Shore legal-ish news….
Continue reading “Vinny From Jersey Shore In Re: The LSAT And Its Relevance In Building A Legal Career”
Performance on the LSAT is negatively correlated with networking ability.
– Vice Provost and Professor Sheldon Zedeck of UC Berkeley, at a panel entitled Beyond Grades and Scores: Factors Predicting Lawyer Success and Effectiveness, at the annual NALP conference (which concluded yesterday).
Whether or not you think that the LSAT should be important, we all know that it is important. Scoring well on the LSAT is absolutely crucial to getting into a good law school.
But usually the power of the LSAT fades after you matriculate to a law school. Usually people who are concerned about your LSAT score are the people who consider their own LSAT score their greatest achievement in life. Pathetic, I know, but I’ve met these people in real life. They really think that scoring well on a standardized test means something more than being able to score well on a standardized test.
We accept that law schools need to be focused on the LSAT — they need some way to compare people from different schools and programs. But should employers still care about your LSAT score? Should legal employers really be concerned about a test that you took years ago, before you had any legal training?
At K&L Gates, the answer appears to be yes…
Continue reading “K&L Gates Still Cares About Your LSAT Score”
* Republicans won’t have Michael Steele to kick around anymore. [Huffington Post]
* Akin Gump apologizes for a controversial post on Powerline by partner Paul Mirengoff. [Indianz.com]
* Is WikiLeaks responsible for the Tunisian revolution? [Business Insider]
* Speaking of Tunisia, MLK Day is important and everything — but maybe, just maybe, U.S. officials in Tunisia should GO TO WORK ON MONDAY. Give them a floating holiday or whatever, but given current events, the U.S. Embassy there should probably stay open. [Gawker]
* Meanwhile, Australian lawyers are getting a flood day. [ABA Journal]
* Who exactly would benefit from dropping the LSAT? [Law Librarian Blog]
* Typo Nazis, here’s something for you. How many spaces should you put between a period and the next sentence? [Slate]
* Additional thoughts on Bruce Antkowiak’s recent criticism of the legal academy (previously mentioned here). [What About Clients?]
Really, it’s a good news/bad news kind of thing. The good news: the ABA committee reviewing the accreditation standards for law schools is starting to remember it has some power over how law schools operate. The bad news: the committee is contemplating a change that will only result in making it easier for schools to recruit any and all with the ability to pay (or go into debt), while at the same time gaming the U.S. News law school rankings.
The latest brain nugget to come from the ABA is a proposal to remove the LSAT requirement for admission into law school. Currently, the committee requires prospective law students to take a “valid and reliable” test. But a number of schools already have a waiver so they can admit their own undergraduates without taking a rankings hit due to low LSAT scores. The new ABA proposal would simply drop the requirement altogether.
I don’t think the LSAT is indicative of whole lot more than one’s ability to study for the LSAT. Being able to take standardized tests is an important skill — at least if you ever want to pass your state bar exam — but it’s not the only skill. From an educational standpoint, I don’t think it really matters if students have to take the LSAT or not.
But given the proliferation of law schools more concerned about generating tuition dollars than preparing the next generation of lawyers, the LSAT exists as one of the few barriers to entry to a profession that is already overrun with applicants. Dropping the requirement is a move in the wrong direction that will only make it easier for diploma mills to churn out the next generation of unemployed, wage-depressing attorneys….
Continue reading “ABA Considers Dropping LSAT Requirement for Admission to Law School”
* You know, I think the National Organization for Women should just try to pretend that Hooters doesn’t exist. The restaurant is just going to piss them off; who needs the aggravation? [ABA Journal]
* If you trust legal advice you receive over Twitter, you’ve already lost. [Legal Blog Watch]
* Apparently, Iowa lawmakers see no use in having three independent branches of government. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Pretty cute comic strip on taking the LSAT, but they must have forgotten the panel where the dead grandmother applies hairspray to the correct answer choice. [LSAT Blog]
* Wow, the promissory estoppel guys have been surprisingly ineffective at breaking through the white noise. [Concurring Opinions]
* Dueling is still not cool for lawyers in Kentucky. [Lowering the Bar]
And we might have had a perfect score if it not for that pesky God character floating around.
In the past few weeks, we’ve brought you two stories about would-be lawyers trying to make critical life decisions. There was the first-year law student who was considering dropping out of law school after just one semester. And there was the prospective law student who wanted to take the LSAT instead of attending his grandmother’s funeral.
In the former case, the Above the Law readership overwhelmingly voted for the 1L to drop out of law school. In the later case, I strenuously argued that the person should go to the funeral and take the LSAT later.
We have updates on both people. It appears that Above the Law readers are more persuasive than I am…
Continue reading “Above the Law Is 1 for 2 at Helping Would-Be Lawyers Do the Right Thing”
Granny wants you to not be an idiot.
Pure lunacy is on display today in the Dear Prudence column on Slate. A prospective law student is set to take the December administration of the LSAT. But his or her grandmother — for ease of reference, I’ll use the male pronoun throughout this post — recently lost a battle with Alzheimer’s. Hence this question to Prudence (from questioner “Funerals and Such”):
I lost my grandmother yesterday, and I am devastated as we were very close. She had Alzheimer’s for years, and I made my peace with this some time ago. My family has planned the funeral for Saturday.
Here is the problem: My LSAT is Saturday, and I have waited for years for an opportunity to pursue law school. (I am near 30.) I told my mom that I couldn’t make the funeral because I cannot reschedule the LSAT, and she was furious! I have been on the phone with the LSAT people all morning, pleading to reschedule. No luck. Mom has informed me that she and my family are really disappointed with me, and I need to be at the funeral in order to pay my respects.
I don’t want to disappoint my family, but I have waited my entire life for this chance at law school, and I don’t want to give it up now. Additionally, if I don’t take the LSAT on Saturday, I will miss the opportunity to take it again in February (possible surgery), and I can kiss law school for next fall goodbye!
Yeah, this fellow is trying to decide between taking the LSAT or honoring his dead grandmother, and it’s apparently an open question. He’s going to make an excellent Biglaw attorney someday.
In the meantime, Prudence and I disagree about the appropriate response….
Continue reading “Prospective Law Student Must Choose Between LSAT and Dead Grandma”
