JD Underground


WSJ Article From 2007, Pre Collapse, States That Law School As An Investment Is Bad For All Too Many

[url]http://online.wsj.com/article/ SB119040786780835602.htmldwismos07/29/10
wow. so deciding to apply to law school in just several yeaTiredofStrugglin07/29/10
This article should be emailed by LSAC to every person who rdwismos07/29/10
Thats Lawis4Losers in that article. Its what outed him on thAssociateX07/29/10
That 15% increase in grads flooding the market between '02 adwismos07/29/10
the various bar associations are typically controlled by memTiredofStrugglin07/29/10
From the law.com article regarding the University of New Havhoteldaybreak07/29/10
Yeah, these people are full of it, for sure. I love thadwismos07/29/10
Wow, breaking news from 2007. This just in, a young. some sajeremiahwright07/29/10
I posted it so that any prospective law students who happen dwismos07/29/10
Thank you for posting these articles, even though they are oFrida207/29/10
Yeah, because this article was published pre collapse, it isdwismos07/29/10
For those of you who are interested in seeing the stats as wFrankytheFly07/30/10
this is the article that, in john bungso's words, fired the JJPisdead07/30/10
dwismos (Jul 29 - 5:03 pm)

[url]http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119040786780835602.html?mod=hps_us_pageone[/url]

Man, Seton Hall is really a punching bag. In the article, a former student expresses regret over attending and the dean dismisses him as an unfortunate case. Wow.

"On the supply end, more lawyers are entering the work force, thanks in part to the accreditation of new law schools and an influx of applicants after the dot-com implosion earlier this decade. In the 2005-06 academic year, 43,883 Juris Doctor degrees were awarded, up from 37,909 for 2001-02, according to the American Bar Association. Universities are starting up more law schools in part for prestige but also because they are money makers. Costs are low compared with other graduate schools and classrooms can be large. Since 1995, the number of ABA-accredited schools increased by 11%, to 196." -WSJ

Wow. I had no idea that the market was being flooded to that extent. This is a great article as it addresses most of the key issues that prospective students are not aware of or choose to ignore.

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TiredofStrugglin (Jul 29 - 5:12 pm)

wow. so deciding to apply to law school in just several years ago was, even if not the most sensible decision, not totally insane... but while those people were getting their degrees for 3-4 years, they just got royally fucked

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dwismos (Jul 29 - 5:16 pm)

This article should be emailed by LSAC to every person who registers for the LSAT, and it should be passed out to each test taker as he/she leaves the test center. This article reveals the truth about what awaits most would be attys.

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AssociateX (Jul 29 - 5:14 pm)

Thats Lawis4Losers in that article. Its what outed him on this board and others. I remember reading that article like it was yesterday..Damn, that was 2007?? Shit, time flies.

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dwismos (Jul 29 - 5:42 pm)

That 15% increase in grads flooding the market between '02 and '06 is huge. When was the tipping point reached? Prior to '02 or after '02? The 11% increase in accredited schools after '95 was so unnecessary in hindsight. It hasn't ended either.

New law schools are scheduled to open within the next two to three years. Egad. An article in The National Law Journal discusses the issue: [url]http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202421786165&slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1[/url]

The ABA and the law schools should be concerned with the overall quality of life enjoyed (or not enjoyed, as it were) by those who choose to enter the legal profession, but apparently they are not. 50K per year isn't that bad if you owe 100K+ for something....... like a mortgage on a dwelling in which you get to live. If you're making student loan payments on that amount, you will struggle.

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TiredofStrugglin (Jul 29 - 5:56 pm)

the various bar associations are typically controlled by members of the larger and wealthier firms and don't give a rat's ass about the flooding of the job market. and of course they don't give a fuck... as far as they're concerned, they'll still be raking in the big bucks hand over fist.

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hoteldaybreak (Jul 29 - 6:27 pm)

From the law.com article regarding the University of New Haven opening a law school: "The school has implemented a feasibility study, and the university's president, Steven Kaplan, has touted the university's strong forensic science and criminal justice programs as a solid base for a law school."

This is hilarious. This is like a naive 0L thinking his major in criminal justice makes him more qualified to attend law school.

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dwismos (Jul 29 - 6:31 pm)

Yeah, these people are full of it, for sure.

I love that there is going to be a new law school in Bangor, Maine. Why in the hell would there be a need for another law school in Maine? It is a state of 1.3 million people, and Bangor is a town of 32,000.

Edit: I just read that the Husson College of Law will not open, after all. That's OK though. Other law schools are opening to produce more badly needed attys.

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jeremiahwright (Jul 29 - 9:00 pm)

Wow, breaking news from 2007. This just in, a young. some say white, others say black, senator from Illinois is thinking about running for the Democratic party nomination for president.

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dwismos (Jul 29 - 10:29 pm)

I posted it so that any prospective law students who happen upon this board might see that their future profession is likely going to be a bum steer. The law school deans is playin' unsuspecting dreamers for rubes.

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Frida2 (Jul 29 - 9:31 pm)

Thank you for posting these articles, even though they are older. The Wall Street Journal article was published in September 2007, before we were in a recession. I had already read this WSJ article -- I came across it about 6 months ago when I was googling stuff about the legal market and law school bubble. I found this WSJ article about the same time I found JDU and the scam blogs. The fact that it was published pre-recession actually makes it MORE powerful because it is proof that the problems in the legal market are structural rather than cyclical.

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dwismos (Jul 29 - 10:34 pm)

Yeah, because this article was published pre collapse, it is obvious that the problems were the result of all of the factors addressed in the article and not the current economic downturn.

Clearly things are worse during the recession.

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FrankytheFly (Jul 30 - 4:06 am)

For those of you who are interested in seeing the stats as well as how they relate to population growth, I published a study about it:

http://flustercucked.blogspot.com/2010/07/40-years-of-lawyer-overproduction-data.html

"I was curious about the historical trend, so I conducted a study and was surprised to discover that the law schools have been overproducing lawyers for almost 40 years! In other words, the rate of production in terms of SILPC has averaged one lawyer for every 171.9 people since 1973. I knew that lawyer overproduction had been a problem for decades, but I had never imagined that it was this bad! I had previously assumed that the SILPC had decreased steadily over time, but apparently this is not the case."

There was definitely a jump in the number of new JDs produced over the past decade as well as a decrease in the "Sustained Inverse Lawyers per Capita" stat, which is a measure of the rate of the production of new lawyers in terms of how many lawyers per capita our nation would eventually have in 40 years time if the population remained fixed.

Year New JDs US Pop Inverse Lawyers Per Capita (SILPC)
2000 38,158 282,434,000 185.0
2001 37,910 285,545,000 188.3
2002 38,606 288,600,000 186.9
2003 38,875 291,221,000 187.3
2004 40,024 293,842,000 183.5
2005 42,672 296,463,000 173.7
2006 43,883 299,084,000 170.4
2007 43,518 301,705,000 173.3
2008 43,588 304,326,000 174.5
2009 44,000 306,947,000 174.4

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JJPisdead (Jul 30 - 7:37 am)

this is the article that, in john bungso's words, fired the shot across the toilet world. or something.

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