We’ve done quite a few stories now on law students losing control of their sense of discretion as graduation approaches.

We’ve got another one, this time from Wake Forest School of Law, we think. The student who sent it claims not to have sent it. We’ve spoken to school officials who are looking into this as a possible hacker situation.

But regardless of who sent it, this email does include a tale that many commenters have been worried about. With all the schools trying to help out deferred or unemployed graduates, how will the employment statistics be reported to U.S. News? Somebody (who may or may not be affiliated with Wake Forest) has this hypothesis:

As I was working in the Career Services office last week I heard [Redacted], talking to the others in the office how relieved she was that they were to place several students from last year’s class that had not found a job yet with one at the law school so as to not adversely affect our rankings. It seems as of the total number of unemployed students is so large that if we did the honorable thing and properly and accurately reported our actual data to the ABA and the US News magazine that our ranking would have dropped out of the top 50 law schools. In other words, we would have become a second tier law school. She was happy they could “fix” the problem by hiring former students in some capacity at the law school so our “numbers” looked good. As I sit studying for exam and the more I think of her comments, that madder I get.

“Fix” the problem, bullshit, they just hid the problem. The real problem is the lack of ability in this office. We have discussed this every year with the dean at our “town meeting”, and yet the office remains unchanged and they remain employed despite abysmal results. Well its time for a change in this office. Any bets what the “true” unemployment statistics for our class will be given the economy?

Wake Forest is ranked 40th in the latest U.S. News law school rankings. And while this person is clearly worried about the school’s rankings, the person also wants to hold Wake to a higher ethical standard.

Wake Forest Dean Blake Morant responds after the jump.