Law School Admissions

Brain Drain From Top-50 Law Schools

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Here’s a fun way of looking at the new U.S. News law school rankings that arrived last night: are the top-tier law schools getting dumber?

We’ve reported a lot on the declining number of applications to law school. And we’ve also talked about how the people who do better on the LSAT are more likely to not apply to law school (most likely because they have better options), while poor LSAT scorers are still eager to go to law school.

Maybe the LSAT really is an accurate test of logical reasoning skills.

Fewer applications overall but a higher share of them from people with poor LSAT scores should lead to a drop in the median LSAT score at top schools. As the smart people flee law school (“smart” as a measure of LSAT score, for whatever that’s worth), it should mean that better law schools have to grab more low-hanging LSAT fruit.

And that is what has in fact happened….

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Morning Docket: 03.06.13

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* Dewey was quick about getting its Chapter 11 plan confirmed, but all of these unfinished business claims are taking a little longer to resolve than previously hoped. But hey, at least Paul Hastings settled. [Am Law Daily]

* Because sometimes profit sharing isn’t enough: Theodore Freedman, a former Kirkland & Ellis partner, pleaded guilty to tax fraud after underreporting his partnership income by more than $2M. [New York Law Journal]

* Here are some tips if you’re trying to get off a law school’s wait list. Apparently it’s wise to wait patiently instead of being a complete gunner from the get go. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News & World Report]

* Imagine a land filled with millions of little Honey Boo Boos. That’s what the great state of Arkansas is going to look like if the legislature passes the most restrictive abortion law in the country. [WSJ Law Blog (sub. req.)]

* Not only do the Mavericks suck, but Mark Cuban’s luck in court does, too. His bid to toss an insider trading case was denied. He’d probably jump over the bench and have a fit if he could. [DealBook / New York Times]

* Dawn Clark Netsch, beloved Illinois pol and one of the nation’s first female law profs, RIP. [Chicago Tribune]

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Morning Docket: 02.19.13

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A future law student?

* Save for an unintelligible joke made last month, it’s been seven years since Clarence Thomas has spoken during oral arguments, much less asked a question, but with no offense to his colleagues, he’d rather “allow the advocates to advocate.” [Washington Post]

* Sorry, members of the American public, but something like 95 percent of you are too stupid to understand what’s going on during Supreme Court hearings, so there’s no point in having cameras in the courtroom to film them. (Sotomayor, J.) [New York Times]

* “Having an empty bench means people don’t get their cases heard,” but it seems like Senate Republicans could not care less. Obama’s facelift for the federal judiciary is going to have to wait a little while longer. [San Francisco Chronicle]

* A lawgasm for prestige nerds: the Harvard Law Review received federal trademark protection, and with that, the number three law school in the country gained some bragging rights over Yale. [Daily Report (reg. req.)]

* Oh my God, you guys, law school applications are down, no one can find jobs, and recent graduates are in debt up to their eyeballs. This is totally new information that no one’s heard before. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]

* Turning to your parents for law school advice is perhaps the worst idea in the world — after all, they’re the cause of your “special little snowflake” syndrome in the first place. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

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Law School Applications Crater

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We’ve been following the decline in law school applications as prospective law students figure out that the pot of gold at the end of the law school rainbow isn’t available for everybody.

Today, we have a look at new numbers that show an even more precipitous drop in applications for the class of 2016 than many had expected. So far, applications are down 20 percent from where they were in 2012. Law school applications are down 38 percent from where they were in 2010.

If you’ve been wondering why we’ve seen this proliferation of law school deans and professors making spurious arguments in favor of going to law school, this is why.

But maybe instead of trying to win the media battle, these numbers will inspire some in legal academia to address the underlying problems with legal education. Because trying to argue the problem away with nonsensical op-eds doesn’t seem to be working out….

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Quote of the Day: Cooley Law Has Admissions Standards!

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If you show us the ability to be an attorney, we’ll give you the opportunity to be an attorney. It’s not like we let anybody in the door. We don’t. But we’re much more inclusive in our admissions policy than most law schools are.

– Jeffrey L. Martlew, associate dean of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School’s brand spanking new Florida campus, commenting on the school’s admissions policy of inclusion, rather than elitism.

(Want to learn more about this bastion of legal education’s unique approach to law schools admissions? Come on, you know you do, so keep reading!)

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Students and Recent Graduates Speak Out About Dean Mitchell’s Defense of Law School

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Law students react to op-ed in the New York Times.

Yesterday, we discussed a New York Times op-ed, “Law School Is Worth the Money,” by Dean Lawrence E. Mitchell of Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

Mitchell has been slammed — by me, by Professor Paul Campos, by Alison Monahan, and by many others. If you’ve been looking seriously at the state of legal education, it wasn’t hard to eviscerate Mitchell’s arguments.

But Mitchell seems to believe that looking critically at the value proposition of legal education is a media-driven phenomenon. As he wrote in his op-ed, “For at least two years, the popular press, bloggers and a few sensationalist law professors have turned American law schools into the new investment banks.”

It seems that Mitchell has forgotten about the students. Bloggers and law professors don’t really have any skin in this game. But actual students feel like law school deans have taken advantage of them, and telling them “everything is okay here” isn’t a winning argument.

These kids are tired of law deans, like Mitchell, who continue to act like law schools can keep doing what they’re doing while recent graduates don’t have jobs and are crushed under a mountain of debt. They’re really sick of the subtle implication that they only reason the “great deal” of law school didn’t work out for them was that they were “lazy” or somehow undeserving.

In short, they are sick and tired of the very kind of arguments Mitchell made in the New York Times — and yesterday they spoke out about it, loudly….

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Law Dean Takes to the New York Times Op-Ed Page to Blame Media for Declining Law School Applications

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This law dean is hoping you’re wearing Bad Idea Jeans when you read his NYT op-ed.

You know that you are selling a substandard product when you start trying to blame “bloggers” as the reason people are refusing purchase your bill of goods.

Lawrence E. Mitchell, the dean of Case Western Reserve University School of Law, took to the Op-Ed page of the New York Times to defend the value proposition of going to law school. Mitchell would have you believe that the media — which only recently started asking law schools to provide evidence that legal education was worth the exorbitant prices schools charge for it — has unfairly and “irrationally” dissuaded the brightest students from attending law school. He writes: “The hysteria has masked some important realities and created an environment in which some of the brightest potential lawyers are, largely irrationally, forgoing the possibility of a rich, rewarding and, yes, profitable, career.”

To be clear, the argument here is that some of the BRIGHTEST potential lawyers are acting “irrationally” by not going to law school, which I suppose leaves only some of the not-brightest potential lawyers as the ones who still believe op-eds from law school deans touting the value of law school.

Mitchell’s problem is actually quite common among law school deans. In fact, Mitchell unintentionally captures the basic disconnect between law students and the deans that take their money: the facts Mitchell wants people to focus on when they are considering going to law school are not the facts that matter to people when they graduate from law school.

And the reason law school applications are on the way down is that the brightest potential lawyers are starting to understand the difference….

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Law School Class Sizes Continue To Shrink. Are We Close To A Crash?

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Today brings us more evidence that the number of people applying to law school is dropping. A new Kaplan survey shows that 51 percent of law schools have cut the size of their incoming classes. Of those schools, 63 percent claim they are cutting in response to the weak legal job market.

While the job market is certainly a factor, we know that schools are also struggling to keep up their admission standards as fewer and fewer people apply to law school. Some people think this is a temporary trough and that applications will pick back up once the economy gets better.

But some people see a crash coming, one that will force a few law schools out of business…

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Morning Docket: 11.13.12

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Paula Broadwell

* Deep in the heart of Texas, plans are in the works for the state’s secession from the nation via online petition. The most likely White House response? Probably something like this: “HAHAHAHAHAHA!” [Hillicon Valley / The Hill]

* Paula Broadwell, better known as ex-CIA director David Petraeus’s side piece, has officially lawyered up. This guy had better watch out, because he kind of looks a little bit like her former flame. [Washington Post]

* And then they came for the Steves, but there was no one left to speak for them. The day of reckoning has finally come for the men who are being blamed for cooking Dewey’s LeBoeuf. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* Law firms in Manhattan are still recovering from Hurricane Sandy. Not for nothing, but all of the staff members at WilmerHale who were tasked with getting rid of all of the rotten food in the firm’s cafeteria should get a double bonus. Just saying. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Good news, underemployed law school graduates baristas! The First Circuit just affirmed your $14.1M tip-sharing judgment. Maybe now they’ll be able to afford the Starbucks diet. [National Law Journal]

* “This lawsuit is a massive fraud on the federal courts and defendants. It has now descended into farce.” Facebook is yet again seeking dismissal of Paul Ceglia’s ownership claims. [Threat Level / Wired]

* There may be five deciding factors when it comes to law school admissions, but serious candidates should focus on the two most important ones: LSAT and GPA. [Law School Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

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Why Skype Law School Admission Interviews Are A No Good Very Bad Idea

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So Harvard Law School is now conducting admission interviews — via Skype. Yaaay.

I’m all about Skype. It’s a wonderful and useful technological tool. Still, I would want to trust my hypothetical law school admission process to it as much as I would entrust my (also hypothetical) new Ferrari to a 17-year-old on a Friday night.

Let me spell it out…

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