Tuition

Law Students Plan Preemptive Strike Against Their School’s ‘Regular’ Tuition Increase

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It’s a little bit early for tuition hike season, but in a few weeks, we’ll start getting stories about law schools raising tuition on students just because they can. We say it every year, and we’ll say it again this year, but it appears that law school tuition is one of the only things that is recession-proof.

Law salaries remain flat. Law applications are even down, but that doesn’t necessarily mean tuition will follow. Here’s how committed law schools are to raising tuition: they’ll raise tuition and then give high-achieving students scholarships to offset the increase. It’s as if low-achieving law students are subsidizing tuition for high-achieving law students at schools across the country.

Law schools are willing to do whatever it takes to keep making the tuition number go up. At Miami, they raised tuition and then (after we asked about it) gave 2Ls a “waiver” from the hike.

It goes up at Duke. Last year, tuition went up at Duke Law School by 4 percent. Why? Why was the money needed during a time of extreme challenge in the legal job market? Who knows? It’s not like Duke is required to explain itself to students.

But this year, some Duke Law students are trying to make the administration understand that the “standard” tuition hike doesn’t make any sense for the students at the school….

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Non-Sequiturs: 01.03.13

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* I didn’t make this list of the 25 most influential people in legal education. That pisses me off. I’m going to start writing about how people shouldn’t trust legal educators because law schools are only interested in profits and not the employment outcomes of their students. That’ll show ‘em! [Tax Prof Blog]

* … Of course, you know what else doesn’t make any list of influencing legal education? The truth. [Constitutional Daily]

* This has been a big day for our friends at Thomson Reuters and at LexisNexis. [3 Geeks and a Law Blog]

* Time Warner Cable is well within its rights to act like feckless cowards. [Huffington Post]

* I like watching the Feds try to roll rich people. I’ve got no horse in the race, I’m just there for the competition. [Dealbreaker]

* U.K. considers forcing fat people to lose weight in order to keep their benefits. I was going to make a “Britain, outsource, BBW” joke, which somehow led me to the Wikipedia page for BBW, a page that has really not at all what you’d expect the graphic on BBW to be. [Legal Blog Watch]

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Non-Sequiturs: 12.20.12

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It’s already tomorrow somewhere, and things seem okay.

* I’m happy to have spent this last day on Earth with you. And with professors Paul Campos and Brian Tamanaha telling you how law school is a raw deal. [HuffPost Live]

* Meanwhile, Seton Hall will be offering a tuition “discount” to students based on merit. Which is really just what a lot of law schools have been doing to try to fill seats as people become more aware of the problems with legal education. [National Law Journal]

* One reason my job is better than yours: I get emails with the subject lines like “CockSucker Decision Analysis” all the time. [The Legal Satyricon]

* I didn’t know there were freaking idiots out there who thought that Israel had more lax gun laws than we do. But they don’t. Because Israelis like being safe. [Huffington Post]

* And if you think more lax gun laws in Russia would make the murder rate there go down, you are probably the kind of dumbass who thinks you can look into Putin’s eyes and see his soul. [Atlantic]

* So when former U.S. Olympian Suzy Favor Hamilton admits to it, it’s called “prostitution,” but when we’re doing essentially the same story about Ryan Lochte in 10 years, we’re going to call it “sex addiction” or something. [Chicago Tribune]

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Morning Docket: 12.19.12

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* Oh mon dieu! Cela ne semble pas bon! As confirmed by The Lawyer, Nixon Peabody will definitely be closing its four-year-old international outpost in Paris, France, leaving the firm with only two offices outside of the United States. Triste. :( [Am Law Daily]

* “I just wanted somebody to pat me on the head.” Aww, all this former Winston & Strawn partner wanted was for someone to tell him he was a good boy, so he helped Kenneth Starr launder money. At least he didn’t get jail time. [New York Law Journal]

* Sorry, lady, but when you work in an HR capacity and you publish tripe about gays not being civil rights victims because they “choose” their lifestyle, the Sixth Circuit will just laugh at your appeal. [National Law Journal]

* At least one law school has gotten the point that tuition is too damn high. Starting next year, Seton Hall Law will allow qualifying first-year students to save about 50 percent on the cost of attendance. [Associated Press]

* What are some benefits of taking a gap year between the completion of your undergraduate degree and law school? Well, for one, you might reconsider your decision to enroll. [Law Admissions Lowdown / U.S. News]

* Robert Bork, former D.C. Circuit judge and SCOTUS nominee, RIP. [Commentary Magazine]

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Non-Sequiturs: 11.12.12

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Megyn Kelly

* Barack Obama will not be invited to party with the Supreme Court justices to celebrate his reelection — which is too bad, because from what we hear, they really know how to get down. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Here’s a protip that essentially comes straight from David Petraeus. You can add these to the list of crazy things that your jealous mistress will say to any other woman who so much as looks in your direction. [Althouse]

* “Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better?” Career alternative for this attorney: bludgeoning Karl Rove with witty election night insults for his failure to admit Obama won Ohio. [Daily Beast]

* Here’s a list of the five kinds of partners you’ll typically find in Biglaw. All you’ve got to do is find their weaknesses, and use them to your advantage. [Greedy Associates / FindLaw]

* In the days ahead, should law schools cut tuition or cut class size? Obviously the solution is to do a little from column A and a little from column B, but you know they’ll never budge on tuition. [PrawfsBlawg]

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Quote of the Day: Of Course The School’s Mission Is to Move Up in the Rankings (and Make Money in the Process)

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Dean Douglas Sylvester

We’re already quite confident that we’ll move up in the rankings again. We think we’ll be solidly in the top 25 and certainly in to the top seven or eight of all publics. But moving downtown isn’t about rankings. It’s about the mission of this law school.

– Douglas Sylvester, dean of the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, commenting on the school’s proposed move from Tempe to Phoenix.

(We mentioned previously that this proposed move would potentially come at a cost to students in the form of higher tuition, but Dean Sylvester now claims he’s “very hopeful” that there won’t be a tuition hike.)

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Morning Docket: 10.29.12

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At least Casey Anthony knows her new venue motion is laughable.

* Hurricane Sandy is set to arrive today, so batten down the hatches, folks! Everything’s closing down for the storm, but please feel free to email us, if your law school or law firm is encouraging you to work. [Washington Post]

* Thanks to the SCOTUS decision in Citizens United, companies can now recommend how their employees should vote, which is “no different from telling your children: ‘Eat your spinach. It’s good for you.’” [New York Times]

* Biglaw firms are re-negotiating their office space leases in an effort to save money. While some firms have already sealed their new real estate deals, others are still on the prowl — but which ones? [Am Law Daily]

* The University of St. Thomas School of Law has a new dean, and it certainly seems like he’s willing to make some waves to help his students. The first step for Robert Vischer? Reducing tuition. [National Law Journal]

* “I don’t think her popularity has improved since the [murder] verdict.” That’s probably why Casey Anthony’s lawyers are desperately trying to get a new venue for Zenaida Gonzalez’s defamation case. [Orlando Sentinel]

* A man divorced his formerly fugly wife (she had $100K in plastic surgery to correct her looks), sued her for luring him into marriage her under false pretenses, and won. Don’t worry, girls, this happened in China. [FOX]

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How Much Will Law School Cost In The Future? It’s Pretty Scary…

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In the past few months, those involved in legal academia have been going back and forth over whether the cost of law school tuition is “too damn high.” Many would argue that it is, considering the fact that even during the height of the recession, some law schools instituted across the board tuition hikes. Even now, when repeated calls have been made for reduced class sizes, law school tuition continues to rise to make up for the lost revenue those additional students would have provided.

This problem, they say, needs to be remedied immediately — before the law school tuition bubble pops — so that we can avoid additional problems down the line. Because after all, as my colleague Elie Mystal noted in 2010, “Law school tuition might be recession proof, but student debt repayment is not.”

If we continue on this way, we may be looking at some pretty scary numbers in the future….

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While Other Law Schools Are Shrinking in Size, This One Hopes to Offer Bigger Classes (Not to Mention Bigger Tuition Bills)

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We’ve been writing about shrinking law school class sizes for quite some time now. At first, it seemed like a trend. But then more and more schools started doing it, some voluntarily and some not-so voluntarily (although those schools will likely claim that it was their idea all along).

In this time of struggle in the legal job market, with constant chatter about the unconscionability of student loan debt, you’d think that almost all law schools would be on board with the idea that smaller class sizes will ensure the likelihood of employment for their graduates. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. It appears that a school other than Cooley Law (which just opened its fifth campus) has hopped aboard the MOAR LAW STUDENTS train.

Which one is it? Let’s find out….

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Morning Docket: 09.28.12

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* Chief Judge Edith Jones of the Fifth Circuit, the judicial diva herself, will be stepping down from her role at the head of the bench earlier than expected, due to “family issues.” Perhaps she told someone to “shut up” too many times? [Tex Parte Blog]

* Apple asked U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh to deny Samsung’s request that she bar all further communication with trial jurors, because the company claims it wants “equal access to information” (aka jury foreman Velvin Hogan). [Bloomberg]

* “[T]here’s no way to preserve the definition of marriage [as one man and one woman] other than by preserving the definition. It becomes somewhat circular.” That, and you rely on law from 1885. Argh! [BuzzFeed]

* ASU Law wants to move from Tempe to Phoenix, and to make it financially feasible, the school may increase enrollment and raise tuition. Sound like a good idea, prospective law students cash cows? [Arizona Republic]

* Now compare/contrast: Stanford Law had to dip into its coffers to come up with the cash to cover its financial aid promises this year, but the school isn’t cutting out a dime that’s owed to students. [National Law Journal]

* Massachusetts appealed the Michelle Kosilek sex-change ruling. The state claims it provided “adequate medical care,” but it’s questionable whether that was the case if the prisoner tried to castrate herself. [CNN]

* Tully Rinckey, a midsize firm, is planning to open an office in Buffalo, New York, so it sent out recruitment letters to 5,469 attorneys in the region. Unemployed law grads: open the letter, it’s not a bill! [Buffalo News]

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