Lawyer & Law School Megathread #12: Started Out Barrister, Ended Up Barista

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Lawyer & Law School Megathread #12: Started Out Barrister, Ended Up Barista

«‹›1550 »

The Warszawa: Jun 6, 2005; Look at me. Look at me.

I am the captain now.

ewr2870 posted:

Like 3? Or like 74?

Harvard and Yale were once, undoubtedly, redoubts of the white and wealthy. And, yes, the upper- and upper-middle-class are still overrepresented for reasons intelligently explained by others above. But this Stover at Yale caricature that you're describing is far from accurate today.

It's almost as if humorous hyperbole has been used to mock certain law schools ....

(Go to Valpo, dine on Alpo.)

That said, if I had said "URMs" instead of people of color it would have been almost accurate (it's really more like 8 Hispanics, 3 black students).

Maybe it's the new grading system, but I feel like there's a much bigger emphasis at Yale (and Harvard, to a lesser extent) on "knowing the right people," and "building networks," which - of course- are huge pluses to the white and wealthy. Maybe you disagree, I don't know your background. I can see how white students at HYS might not see it (or want to see it), but that doesn't mean it isn't there or pervasive.

By all means, though, tell me more about what Yale is really like. :allears:

The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Jul 15, 2011

# ? Jul 15, 2011 20:52

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 16, 2024 22:05

Draile: May 6, 2004; forlorn llama

nm posted:

If your parents have a net worth over $1 million excluding the primary home, you don't get to be upper-middle-class.

Accredited Investor joke?

# ? Jul 15, 2011 23:49

qwertyman: May 2, 2003; Congress gave me $3.1 trillion, which I already spent on extremely dangerous drugs. We had acid, cocaine, and a whole galaxy of uppers, downers, screamers, laughers, and amyls.

TheAttackSlug posted:

I wrote a letter to myself does anyone have a time machine.

You forgot to add some Kaizo Mario hack for the NY State multiple choice questions. Spent 4 hours reviewing trusts today and then got 0/5 multiple choice questions on trusts right!

# ? Jul 16, 2011 00:37

Roger_Mudd: Jul 18, 2003; Buglord

TheAttackSlug posted:

I wrote a letter to myself does anyone have a time machine.

That TMNT level can go right to hell.

# ? Jul 16, 2011 01:18

Mattavist: May 24, 2003

You guys are babies, that level wasn't that hard.

# ? Jul 16, 2011 02:54

HiddenReplaced: Apr 21, 2007; Yeah...
it's wanking time.

diospadre posted:

You guys are babies, that level wasn't that hard.

Your avatar has never been and will never be more appropriate than it is now.

# ? Jul 16, 2011 03:02

Ani: Jun 15, 2001; illum non populi fasces, non purpura regum / flexit et infidos agitans discordia fratres

The Warszawa posted:

That said, if I had said "URMs" instead of people of color it would have been almost accurate (it's really more like 8 Hispanics, 3 black students).

I don't think this is accurate (adjusting numbers upwards proportionately) for H. There's a pretty big boost to URM admissions, and they're definitely represented. I think my 80-person section was 10% black.

# ? Jul 16, 2011 03:45

prussian advisor: Jan 15, 2007; The day you see a camera come into our courtroom, its going to roll over my dead body.

The best game on that collage is secretly NES Top Gun, by the way. Well, it's not a secret anymore.

Not sure why they didn't put mid-air refueling instead, which I remember as being MUCH harder.

# ? Jul 16, 2011 04:57

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

Bullshit. All you had to do was hold down the accelerate button and the boom would hook up. Landing was way more stupid.

# ? Jul 16, 2011 05:02

prussian advisor: Jan 15, 2007; The day you see a camera come into our courtroom, its going to roll over my dead body.

Phil Moscowitz posted:

Bullshit. All you had to do was hold down the accelerate button and the boom would hook up. Landing was way more stupid.

Not only is this wrong, but refueling was more obnoxious because if you hosed it up, the mission was impossible to complete but the game would still make you play through it until you ran out of gas anyway. At least when you hosed up the landing it would kill you right away.

# ? Jul 16, 2011 05:11

Phil Moscowitz: Feb 19, 2007; If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

Refueling was easy, seriously don't even move just hold accelerate. Also you could just hold down constantly so the surface targets never launched missiles at you, then when you got to the boss shoot four big missiles at it and win.

But landing was impossible

# ? Jul 16, 2011 05:18

MoFauxHawk: Jan 1, 2007; Mickey Mouse copyright
Walt Gisnep

MEET ME BY DUCKS posted:

There are people in this very thread who have advocated attending HYS at sticker but not attending anything above say Columbia with anything short of a room and board scholarship. I hear Berkeley students are feeling a bit of pressure right now, I doubt they'd pass up HYS for an extra ten grand a year. Law school students are often poorly informed, but I doubt they're so poorly informed as to believe that an extra ten grand a year won't pay itself off in the long run if the degree has Yale's name attached to it. Admitted student weekends will hammer this into anyone who attends them, after all.

I don't think anybody in this thread has said that somebody shouldn't go to Columbia if they have a Hamilton, but don't have a room-and-board scholarship. People need to stop mixing up "full scholarship" with "full scholarship plus stipend" in this thread. The google results for the Rubenstein at Chicago mention nothing about a stipend, they just say "full tuition scholarship." It looks like the Darrow does often come with a stipend though.

I also don't believe you that middle classish people are that likely to get 35k per year financial aid packages at HYS. And there are plenty of upper middle class people whose parents make too much for them to get need-based grants, but who would still have to get six figures of loans to attend a T13 at sticker price.

And I think what Warszawa means by "people of color" is people who aren't white non-Hispanic or Asian/South Asian because Warszawa is a white Hispanic. And URM is a debatable label because Mexicans and Puerto Ricans get a huge boost that rivals the boost African Americans and Native Americans get, but other latinos get a much smaller boost for law school admissions (which sucks for dirt poor mestizo Guatemalans and people like that).

# ? Jul 16, 2011 17:00

Ani: Jun 15, 2001; illum non populi fasces, non purpura regum / flexit et infidos agitans discordia fratres

MoFauxHawk posted:

And URM is a debatable label because Mexicans and Puerto Ricans get a huge boost that rivals the boost African Americans and Native Americans get, but other latinos get a much smaller boost for law school admissions (which sucks for dirt poor mestizo Guatemalans and people like that).

Really? They don't seem to ask for much more than 'hispanic', so I figured it was all the same whether you were a dirt-poor Mexican or some Argentine Nazi.

# ? Jul 16, 2011 18:08

MoFauxHawk: Jan 1, 2007; Mickey Mouse copyright
Walt Gisnep

Ani posted:

Really? They don't seem to ask for much more than 'hispanic', so I figured it was all the same whether you were a dirt-poor Mexican or some Argentine Nazi.

I know people here hate TLS, but from all the data they've collected, the consensus there is that Mexican and Puerto Rican gets a big boost, all other latino gets a small boost.

Edit: Of course the boost we Jews get is much better hidden from the public...

MoFauxHawk fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Jul 16, 2011

# ? Jul 16, 2011 18:45

Nero: Oct 15, 2003

Hypothetically if I have an associate position lined up after law school and fail the bar exam what happens?

# ? Jul 16, 2011 19:27

topheryan: Jul 29, 2004

MoFauxHawk posted:

I don't think anybody in this thread has said that somebody shouldn't go to Columbia if they have a Hamilton, but don't have a room-and-board scholarship. People need to stop mixing up "full scholarship" with "full scholarship plus stipend" in this thread. The google results for the Rubenstein at Chicago mention nothing about a stipend, they just say "full tuition scholarship." It looks like the Darrow does often come with a stipend though.

I also don't believe you that middle classish people are that likely to get 35k per year financial aid packages at HYS. And there are plenty of upper middle class people whose parents make too much for them to get need-based grants, but who would still have to get six figures of loans to attend a T13 at sticker price.

And I think what Warszawa means by "people of color" is people who aren't white non-Hispanic or Asian/South Asian because Warszawa is a white Hispanic. And URM is a debatable label because Mexicans and Puerto Ricans get a huge boost that rivals the boost African Americans and Native Americans get, but other latinos get a much smaller boost for law school admissions (which sucks for dirt poor mestizo Guatemalans and people like that).

To not get aid at HYS your parents need a combined income around 150-200k. I wouldn't disagree that such is upper-middle class.

The fact of the matter is that HYS all have a good deal of money and they don't give out merit scholarships. They also don't have that many students in their qualifying need-based aid range. You can disagree that HYS give out that much money to qualifying students, but they have breakdowns on their websites. I don't know if other schools come up with an assessed parent contribution number (I know some require NeedAccess, so they probably do), but the HYS websites indicate that individuals with an assessed parental contribution of $10,000 a year will get around a $30,000 scholarship every year. In my experience, $10,000 is a very high assessed parental contribution for any middle class individual. I cannot imagine that most middle class families are currently in an economic situation in which it would be assessed that they have $10,000 to give away every year.

I'm certain there are people whose parents make $200,000 a year and would still need full loans for other T15s, but they still solidly fall in the upper-middle/upper class that the blog claims dominates top law schools. That isn't immensely rich, but it seems far too common for people to claim $200,000 a year is middle class, when it isn't even close to average income.

# ? Jul 16, 2011 19:36

entris: Oct 22, 2008; by Y Kant Ozma Post

Nero posted:

Hypothetically if I have an associate position lined up after law school and fail the bar exam what happens?

Most firms will give you another chance, but it depends on the firm.

# ? Jul 16, 2011 19:45

MoFauxHawk: Jan 1, 2007; Mickey Mouse copyright
Walt Gisnep

MEET ME BY DUCKS posted:

To not get aid at HYS your parents need a combined income around 150-200k. I wouldn't disagree that such is upper-middle class.

The fact of the matter is that HYS all have a good deal of money and they don't give out merit scholarships. They also don't have that many students in their qualifying need-based aid range. You can disagree that HYS give out that much money to qualifying students, but they have breakdowns on their websites. I don't know if other schools come up with an assessed parent contribution number (I know some require NeedAccess, so they probably do), but the HYS websites indicate that individuals with an assessed parental contribution of $10,000 a year will get around a $30,000 scholarship every year. In my experience, $10,000 is a very high assessed parental contribution for any middle class individual. I cannot imagine that most middle class families are currently in an economic situation in which it would be assessed that they have $10,000 to give away every year.

I'm certain there are people whose parents make $200,000 a year and would still need full loans for other T15s, but they still solidly fall in the upper-middle/upper class that the blog claims dominates top law schools. That isn't immensely rich, but it seems far too common for people to claim $200,000 a year is middle class, when it isn't even close to average income.

All right, I guess we disagree about the meanings of terms and who the author of the article is talking about. There is a difference between "rich" and "upper class" though. Rich is a broader term and includes plenty of upper middle class people. It wouldn't really make sense if the article were including people whose parents make six figures, but still have to take out large loans, since these people would still have to balance scholarship offers against sticker price, especially if they're not getting financial aid from HYS. I'm guessing the author of the article makes plenty of money himself.

MoFauxHawk fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Jul 16, 2011

# ? Jul 16, 2011 20:32

srsly: Aug 1, 2003

Nero posted:

Hypothetically if I have an associate position lined up after law school and fail the bar exam what happens?

Hypothetically is your start date before or after bar results come out?

If you are already at the firm when you find out you failed there's a much better chance they'll keep you around for another shot.

# ? Jul 16, 2011 21:33

SlyFrog: May 16, 2007; What? One name? Who are you, Seal?

I always love these discussions.

If I recall correctly, roughly 2-3% of U.S. households (so combined incomes, not just individual incomes) make more than $200,000 per year.

Something like 15-20% make more than $100,000 per year.

So when we start talking about individuals with incomes above $100,000, or in particular individuals or households with incomes well above six figures, I think we've moved solidly out of the "middle class" range.

Wouldn't "middle class" by definition have to be somewhere near the middle? Even 15-20%, let alone 2-3%, is not exactly in that ballpark.

This topic is always interesting to me, given that I came from a blue collar background (i.e. real blue collar, not "My dad only had 15 direct reports," blue collar). My parents would think it utterly hilarious if I described my situation as middle class essentially at any point since I started private practice.

# ? Jul 16, 2011 22:12

Secret Asian Man: Jun 17, 2006

b-b-bbut...

my accomplishments...

my merit...

my superiority...

# ? Jul 16, 2011 22:21

Linguica: Jul 13, 2000; You're already dead

Another article to throw on the pile http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/business/law-school-economics-job-market-weakens-tuition-rises.html

quote:

WITH apologies to show business, there�s no business like the business of law school.

The basic rules of a market economy � even golden oldies, like a link between supply and demand � just don�t apply.

Legal diplomas have such allure that law schools have been able to jack up tuition four times faster than the soaring cost of college. And many law schools have added students to their incoming classes � a step that, for them, means almost pure profits � even during the worst recession in the legal profession�s history.

It is one of the academy�s open secrets: law schools toss off so much cash they are sometimes required to hand over as much as 30 percent of their revenue to universities, to subsidize less profitable fields.

In short, law schools have the power to raise prices and expand in ways that would make any company drool. And when a business has that power, it is apparently difficult to resist.

How difficult? For a sense, take a look at the strange case of New York Law School and its dean, Richard A. Matasar. For more than a decade, Mr. Matasar has been one of the legal academy�s most dogged and scolding critics, and he has repeatedly urged professors and fellow deans to rethink the basics of the law school business model and put the interests of students first.

�What I�ve said to people in giving talks like this in the past is, we should be ashamed of ourselves,� Mr. Matasar said at a 2009 meeting of the Association of American Law Schools. He ended with a challenge: If a law school can�t help its students achieve their goals, �we should shut the drat place down.�

Given his scathing critiques, you might expect that during Mr. Matasar�s 11 years as dean, he has reshaped New York Law School to conform with his reformist agenda. But he hasn�t. Instead, the school seems to be benefitting from many of legal education�s assorted perversities.

N.Y.L.S. is ranked in the bottom third of all law schools in the country, but with tuition and fees now set at $47,800 a year, it charges more than Harvard. It increased the size of the class that arrived in the fall of 2009 by an astounding 30 percent, even as hiring in the legal profession imploded. It reported in the most recent US News & World Report rankings that the median starting salary of its graduates was the same as for those of the best schools in the nation � even though most of its graduates, in fact, find work at less than half that amount.

Mr. Matasar declined to be interviewed for this article, though he agreed to answer questions e-mailed through a public relations representative.

Asked if there was a contradiction between his stand against expanding class sizes and the growth of the student population at N.Y.L.S., Mr. Matasar wrote: �The answer is that we exist in a market. When there is demand for education, we, like other law schools, respond.�

This is a story about the law school market, a singular creature of American capitalism, one that is so durable it seems utterly impervious to change. Why? The career of Richard Matasar offers some answers. His long-time and seemingly sincere ambition is to �radically disrupt our traditional approach to legal education,� as it says on his N.Y.L.S. Web page. But even he, it seems, is engaged in the same competition for dollars and students that consumes just about everyone with a financial and reputational stake in this business.

�The broken economic model Matasar describes appears to be his own template,� wrote Brian Z. Tamanaha, a professor at Washington University Law School in St. Louis, in a blog posting about Mr. Matasar last year. �Are his increasingly vocal criticisms of legal academia an unspoken mea culpa?�

A PRIVATE, stand-alone institution located in the TriBeCa neighborhood of downtown Manhattan, New York Law School was founded in 1891 and counts Justice John Marshall Harlan among its most famous graduates. The school � which is not to be confused with New York University School of Law � is housed in a gleaming new 235,000-square-foot building at the corner of West Broadway and Leonard Street.

That building puts N.Y.L.S. in the middle of a nationwide trend: the law school construction boom. As other industries close offices and downsize plants, the manufacturing base behind the doctor of jurisprudence keeps growing. Fordham Law School in New York recently broke ground on a $250 million, 22-story building. The University of Baltimore School of Law and the University of Michigan Law School are both working on buildings that cost more that $100 million. Marquette University Law School in Wisconsin has just finished its own $85 million project. A bunch of other schools have built multimillion dollar additions.

N.Y.L.S. has participated in another national law school trend: the growth in the number of enrollees. Last year, law schools across the country matriculated 49,700 students, according to the Law School Admission Council, the largest number in history, and 7,000 more students than in 2001. N.Y.L.S. grew at an even faster clip. In 2000, the year Mr. Matasar took over, the school had a total of 1,326 full- and-part-time students. By 2009, the figure had risen to 1,596.

The jump seems to contradict one of Mr. Matasar�s core tenets.

�Can class size be increased without damaging quality?� he asked in a 1996 Florida Law Review article. �Can class size be increased without assurances that jobs will be available for the increased number of graduates? Can class size be increased without also providing more staff, faculty, books and service? Increase class size? No!�

Did Mr. Matasar change his mind? In an e-mail, he cited the unpredictability of yield rates, which is the percent of students who accept an offer of admission. There was more than one year of yield surprises under Mr. Matasar, the largest of which came in 2009, when the incoming class leapt by 171 students.

It was a very profitable surprise, worth about $6.7 million in gross revenue. Mr. Matasar would not discuss the added costs of teaching what became known at the school as �the bulge class.� But faculty members, some of whom were offered the chance to take on additional courses, estimate that, at most, the school had to spend about $500,000 more that year on teaching.

This windfall, it turns out, was perfectly timed. Because as all those students were signing up for their first year at N.Y.L.S., a little-noticed drama was unfolding that involved the financing for that brand-new building.

THREE years earlier, in 2006, the school had floated $135 million worth of bonds to finance construction of the new building, at 185 West Broadway. At the time, Moody�s rated the bonds A3, placing them squarely in the �come and get �em� category for investors. The rating reflected N.Y.L.S.�s strong balance sheet and the quality of its management, Moody�s said.

Equally important, N.Y.L.S. was � and is � in a very lucrative business. Like business schools and some high-profile athletic programs, law schools subsidize other fields in universities that can�t pay their own way.

�If my president were to say �We�ll never take more than 10 percent of your revenue,� I�d say �God bless you,� and we�d never have to talk again,� says Lawrence E. Mitchell, the incoming dean of the Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland. �But having just come from a two-day meeting of new and current deans organized by the American Bar Association, I can tell you that some law schools pay 25 or even 30 percent.�

Among deans, the money surrendered to the administration is known informally as �the tax.� Even in the midst of a merciless legal downturn, the tax still pumps huge sums into universities, in part because the price of a law degree continues to climb.

From 1989 to 2009, when college tuition rose by 71 percent, law school tuition shot up 317 percent.

There are many reasons for this ever-climbing sticker price, but the most bizarre comes courtesy of the highly influential US News rankings. Part of the US News algorithm is a figure called expenditures per student, which is essentially the sum that a school spends on teacher salaries, libraries and other education expenses, divided by the number of students.

Though it accounts for just 9.75 percent of the algorithm, it gives law schools a strong incentive to keep prices high. Forget about looking for cost efficiencies. The more that law schools charge their students, and the more they spend to educate them, the better they fare in the US News rankings.

�I once joked with my dean that there is a certain amount of money that we could drag into the middle of the school�s quadrangle and burn,� said John F. Duffy, a George Washington School of Law professor, �and when the flames died down, we�d be a Top 10 school. As long as the point of the bonfire was to teach our students. Perhaps what we could teach them is the idiocy in the US News rankings.�

For years, it made economic sense for smart, ambitious 22-year-olds to pay the escalating price for a legal diploma. Law schools have had a monopolist�s hold on the keys to corporate lawyerdom, which pays graduates six-figure salaries.

But borrowing $150,000 or more is now a vastly riskier proposition given the scarcity of Big Law jobs. Of course, that scarcity hasn�t been priced into the cost of law school. How come? In part, it�s because schools have managed to convey the impression that those jobs aren�t very scarce.

For instance, although N.Y.L.S. is ranked No. 135 out of the roughly 200 schools in the US News survey, it asserts in figures provided to the publisher that nine months after graduation, the median private-sector salary of alums who graduated in 2009 � which is the class featured in the most recent US News annual law school issue � was $160,000. That is exactly the same figure cited by Yale and Harvard, the top law schools in the country.

Mr. Matasar stood by that number, but acknowledged that it did not give a complete picture of the prospects for N.Y.L.S. grads. He noted that the school takes the over-and-above step of posting more granular salary data on its Web site.

�In these materials and in our conversations with students and applicants,� he wrote, �we explicitly tell them that most graduates find work in small to medium firms at salaries between $35,000 and $75,000.�

Determining exactly how many graduates make even those relatively modest salaries isn�t easy. The information posted online by N.Y.L.S. about the class of 2010 says that only 26 percent of those employed reported their salaries. The nearly 300 students who reported being employed but said nothing about their salaries � who knows?

Like all other law schools, N.Y.L.S. collects this job information without anyone else looking at the raw data or double checking the math. Which gets to another dimension of the law school business that other companies might envy: a lack of independent auditing, at least when it comes to these crucial employment stats. It�s kind of like makers of breakfast cereal reporting the nutrition levels of their products, without worrying that anyone will actually count the calories.

THOUGH astoundingly resilient as businesses, law schools have always had a glaring liability: they generally sell just one product, legal diplomas. This lack of diversification means that if enrollment drops, a school�s balance sheet will suffer.

Like all stand-alone institutions, N.Y.L.S. is even more dependent on student tuition than those attached to universities, and Moody�s highlighted this fact in its 2006 appraisal of the school�s bonds. Under a section about potential �challenges� that could lead to a downgrade, Moody�s cited �significant and sustained deterioration of student market position.�

A downgrade would be expensive for the school because it would mark the bonds as riskier, which would force the school to pay higher interest rates in the future.

In May of 2009, a month before the official end of the recession, Moody�s issued a new report and suddenly, a downgrade seemed like a real possibility. One problem was that applications to the school for the upcoming class of 2009, Moody�s reported, were down 28 percent compared with the volume the year before. The rating agency changed its outlook on the bonds from �stable� to �negative,� which is bond-speak for �If current trends continue, a downgrade is coming.�

But just three months later, the enrollment scare was over. In the fall of 2009, the incoming class was N.Y.L.S.�s largest ever � 736 students. (Only one law school in the country, Thomas M. Cooley in Michigan, matriculated a greater number.)

Some faculty members were happy to enhance their salaries by teaching another course. Others were appalled at what the super-sized class would mean for students.

�At a school like New York Law, which is toward the bottom of the pecking order, it�s long been difficult for our students to find high-paying jobs,� said Randolph N. Jonakait, a professor at N.Y.L.S. and a frequent critic of Mr. Matasar�s. �Adding more than 100 students to an incoming class harms their employments prospects. It�s always been tough for our graduates. Now it�s tougher.�

Was Mr. Matasar more worried about bond ratings than the fortunes of his new students? Several faculty members said, and he confirmed, that the bonds were part of discussions about the financial health of the school in 2009.

�However,� Mr. Matasar wrote, �N.Y.L.S. never promised (nor needed to promise) anyone that it would increase enrollment to meet debt service obligations.� The size of the 2009 class, he went on, was �unplanned,� again referring to a surprise in yield.

But given that interest in graduate school typically spikes during economic slumps, wasn�t a sharp rise in yield foreseeable? It was to N.Y.L.S.�s rivals. There are about 40 other schools in what US News has long categorized as its third tier, and the average increase in class size at those schools in 2009 was just 6 percent. (At 10 of those schools, enrollment declined.) That is dwarfed by the 30 percent uptick at N.Y.L.S.

Whether Mr. Matasar had bond ratings in mind at the time, Moody�s liked what it saw. In August of 2010, the company issued a new report that included news of the 736-student class, which was described, in the classic understated style of bond reporting, as �particularly large.� The Moody�s outlook for the N.Y.L.S. bonds changed once again � this time from negative to stable.

THE incoming class of 2009 won�t hit the job market until next year, but if the experience of recent N.Y.L.S. graduates is an indication, many of them are in for a lengthy hunt. Mr. Matasar offered an inventory of N.Y.L.S.�s career services office, which he says includes 15 employees and provides development and mentoring programs and oversees a series of networking events.

There are those, he wrote, �who rave about the career services office.� But he added that a recent poll of law schools found that a little more than half of third-year students were unsatisfied with the job search help. �We have a similar experience,� he wrote.

Among the unsatisfied is Katherine Greenier, of N.Y.L.S.�s class of 2010. As she neared graduation, she organized an informational meeting for students interested in public-interest law, the kind of get-together she thought the career services office should have offered. To her amazement, a rep from that office showed up, took a seat and asked questions.

�She was asking about the process, like how you go about applying for public-interest fellowships,� Ms. Greenier says. �Things that you would have hoped she already knew.�

Ms. Greenier, who wound up with a job at the American Civil Liberties Union in Richmond, Va., ultimately decided that the school had what she called a �factory feel.�

The size of the incoming class of 2009 only sharpened that conclusion.

�There were people wondering, why did the school take on this many people in a job market this terrible?� she asked. �How many of these folks are going to find jobs? And what does it say about the school?�

IN April, Mr. Matasar stood in a lecture hall on the third floor at N.Y.L.S. and delivered the keynote at Future Ed, the third of three conferences about legal education that he�d helped organize, in partnership with Harvard Law School. A few dozen professors and deans were in attendance as he argued for a more student-centric approach to education.

�The focus shifts from us � we the faculty, we the administration, we the permanent employees of the school � to those we serve, our students,� he said. �Things are seen through a lens that says �What will this do for the students?� �

Nearly all the people who have worked with Mr. Matasar say he means what he says about reforming legal education. N.Y.L.S. professors recall meetings where he urged the faculty to be more responsive to students � to return calls faster, meet more often, whatever would help.

�He put a huge, beautiful student dining area in the top floor of that new building,� says Tanina Rostain, a former N.Y.L.S. professor, now at Georgetown University Law Center. �But it doesn�t have a faculty lounge. We were a little nonplussed, but it was clear that the students were Rick�s priority.�

How does one square that priority with the inexorable rise of N.Y.L.S.�s tuition, its population growth, its eyebrow-arching job data?

The question has puzzled more than a few academics and has produced a variety of theories. Perhaps the most compelling is that as both a crusader and a dean, Mr. Matasar has conflicting, even incompatible missions. The crusader thinks that law school costs too much. The dean has to raise the price of tuition or get murdered in the US News rankings. The crusader worries about the future of all those unemployed graduates. The dean has interest payments to make on a gorgeous new building.

�I�m 100 percent convinced that Matasar believes in his reformist agenda,� says Paul F. Campos, a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder School of Law and a Future Ed attendee. �But all reformers discover that they can�t change a system by themselves. And by trying to survive in the current structure, he has ended up participating in the perpetuation of its most indefensible elements.�

The tale of Mr. Matasar�s career is not primarily about a gap between words and actions. Rather, it is a measure of how all-consuming competition in the legal academy has become, and how unlikely it is that the system will be reformed from within.

To be clear, there is little about the way N.Y.L.S. operates that is drastically different from other American law schools. What�s happened there is, for the most part, standard operating procedure. What sets N.Y.L.S. apart is that it is managed by a man who has criticized many of the standards and much of the procedure.

In fact, Mr. Matasar has been quoted about wanting to upend legal education for so long it is impossible to believe he is doesn�t mean it. But he can�t act unilaterally. And what industry has ever decided that for the good of its customers, it ought to charge less money, or shrink?

�My salary,� Mr. Campos said, �is paid by the current structure, which is in many ways deceptive and unjust to a point that verges on fraud. But as a law professor, I understand that what is good for me is that the structure stay the way it is.�

DECRYING a business and benefitting from it at the same time � it puts you in a tough spot, Mr. Campos said, and one he speculated is even tougher for a dean. But it is not a spot that Mr. Matasar will be in for much longer.

Several weeks ago, Mr. Matasar sent an e-mail to his faculty stating that he would step down in the next academic year. He was considering a few different job options, he explained, all of them �outside of legal education.�

# ? Jul 16, 2011 22:22

Kase Im Licht: Jan 26, 2001

quote:

the median private-sector salary of alums who graduated in 2009 � which is the class featured in the most recent US News annual law school issue � was $160,000...

...Mr. Matasar stood by that number...

...�In these materials and in our conversations with students and applicants,� he wrote, �we explicitly tell them that most graduates find work in small to medium firms at salaries between $35,000 and $75,000.�

These statements are mathematically incompatible.

# ? Jul 17, 2011 00:41

evilweasel: Aug 24, 2002

Kase Im Licht posted:

These statements are mathematically incompatible.

Median lets you actually claim the 160k if you massage your reported salaries (you claim 51% of the salaries reported were 160k) but yeah, what he said contradicts itself and can't be resolved.

# ? Jul 17, 2011 01:06

GamingOdor: Jun 8, 2001; The stench of chips.

"" posted:

the median private-sector salary of alums who graduated in 2009 � which is the class featured in the most recent US News annual law school issue � was $160,000...

...Mr. Matasar stood by that number...

...�In these materials and in our conversations with students and applicants,� he wrote, �we explicitly tell them that most graduates find work in small to medium firms at salaries between $35,000 and $75,000.�

So what are New York's consumer protection statutes like? I have a feeling this is the next school that's going to be sued once the Thomas Jefferson class action starts proceeding past the initial motions.

# ? Jul 17, 2011 03:01

fruitpoops: May 11, 2006; fruitloops

evilweasel posted:

Median lets you actually claim the 160k if you massage your reported salaries (you claim 51% of the salaries reported were 160k) but yeah, what he said contradicts itself and can't be resolved.

It says: "The information posted online by N.Y.L.S. about the class of 2010 says that only 26 percent of those employed reported their salaries."

So, the 26% of the students that graduated reported a median salary of $160k, but (I'm presuming) for the entire class, most will get 35-75k. Though, I'm still kind of amazed that at least 13%+1 out of the graduating class makes 160k+.

fruitpoops fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Jul 17, 2011

# ? Jul 17, 2011 03:07

evilweasel: Aug 24, 2002

fruitpoops posted:

It says: "The information posted online by N.Y.L.S. about the class of 2010 says that only 26 percent of those employed reported their salaries."

So, the 26% of the students that graduated reported a median salary of $160k, but (I'm presuming) for the entire class, most will get 35-75k. Though, I'm still kind of amazed that at least 13%+1 out of the graduating class makes 160k+.

26% of those employed reported that. And 'those employed' are 'those who returned the card saying they were employed'.

# ? Jul 17, 2011 03:17

fruitpoops: May 11, 2006; fruitloops

evilweasel posted:

26% of those employed reported that. And 'those employed' are 'those who returned the card saying they were employed'.

Ah, now that makes sense! I was too optimistic. :blush:

# ? Jul 17, 2011 03:22

Defleshed: Nov 18, 2004; F is for... FREEDOM

I'm at Army JAG School in Charlottesville; any UVa grads with any "must-do" recommendations while I am here for the next couple months?

# ? Jul 17, 2011 03:41

joat mon: Oct 15, 2009; I am the master of my lamp;
I am the captain of my tub.

Defleshed posted:

I'm at Army JAG School in Charlottesville; any UVa grads with any "must-do" recommendations while I am here for the next couple months?

Hash runs.
Lots of hash runs.

# ? Jul 17, 2011 04:30

Bulky Bartokomous: Nov 3, 2006; In Mypos, only the strong survive.

Well now that all my loans back in repayment status I am left with about $700 a month to live on. I remember the financial aid people warning us that if we took out too many loans and lived like lawyers during school, we'd live like law students after graduation. I feel like if I'd taken that advice, at best I'd have about $900 a month to live on.

In summary, law school is a great path to moving back in with your parents, which 3 of the 5 associates at my firm do.

Bulky Bartokomous fucked around with this message at 15:01 on Jul 17, 2011

# ? Jul 17, 2011 13:52

maskenfreiheit: Dec 30, 2004

This quote really stood out to me:

quote:

From 1989 to 2009, when college tuition rose by 71 percent, law school tuition shot up 317 percent.

There are many reasons for this ever-climbing sticker price, but the most bizarre comes courtesy of the highly influential US News rankings. Part of the US News algorithm is a figure called expenditures per student, which is essentially the sum that a school spends on teacher salaries, libraries and other education expenses, divided by the number of students.

Though it accounts for just 9.75 percent of the algorithm, it gives law schools a strong incentive to keep prices high. Forget about looking for cost efficiencies. The more that law schools charge their students, and the more they spend to educate them, the better they fare in the US News rankings.

maskenfreiheit fucked around with this message at 15:00 on Jul 17, 2011

# ? Jul 17, 2011 14:52

Tetrix: Aug 24, 2002

glad I am a special snowflake who will easily make the top 1% or that New York Times article (and the dozens before it) would really frighten me!

# ? Jul 17, 2011 18:10

srsly: Aug 1, 2003

Dantu posted:

In summary, law school is a great path to moving back in with your parents, which 3 of the 5 associates at my firm do.

By "firm" do you mean "fast-food restaurant"?

These numbers do not make sense to me.

# ? Jul 17, 2011 18:18

Thoras Hammer: Oct 15, 2009

Defleshed posted:

I'm at Army JAG School in Charlottesville; any UVa grads with any "must-do" recommendations while I am here for the next couple months?

Not a UVa grad, but I've spent a bit of time in Virginia. I'd at least see Montecello while you are there.

# ? Jul 17, 2011 18:55

Bulky Bartokomous: Nov 3, 2006; In Mypos, only the strong survive.

srsly posted:

By "firm" do you mean "fast-food restaurant"?

These numbers do not make sense to me.

Average new associate pay in my region is between $35k and $50k. Even at the upper end of that range, a roughly $2000 a month bill from Sallie Mae doesn't leave much left over.

# ? Jul 17, 2011 19:20

srsly: Aug 1, 2003

That is an insane student loan bill.

# ? Jul 17, 2011 20:26

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Dantu posted:

Average new associate pay in my region is between $35k and $50k. Even at the upper end of that range, a roughly $2000 a month bill from Sallie Mae doesn't leave much left over.

Can you get that under IBR at all? I think I got my sallie mae loan consolidated with my other federal loans and now I pay literally $0 a month on that $100k loan because the government hasn't figured out I have a job yet and they haven't asked about it. I used the calculator on their website and with my $41k/year job I'll be paying a little over $300/month when it comes due I believe.

# ? Jul 17, 2011 20:31

HiddenReplaced: Apr 21, 2007; Yeah...
it's wanking time.

Dantu posted:

Average new associate pay in my region is between $35k and $50k. Even at the upper end of that range, a roughly $2000 a month bill from Sallie Mae doesn't leave much left over.

Whoa whoa whoa whoa....IBR?

# ? Jul 17, 2011 20:54

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 16, 2024 22:05

GamingOdor: Jun 8, 2001; The stench of chips.

Ainsley McTree posted:

Can you get that under IBR at all? I think I got my sallie mae loan consolidated with my other federal loans and now I pay literally $0 a month on that $100k loan because the government hasn't figured out I have a job yet and they haven't asked about it. I used the calculator on their website and with my $41k/year job I'll be paying a little over $300/month when it comes due I believe.

They asked for my two most recent paychecks right off the bat and I make $42k/year. I circled everything that was tax deductible and requested they base my payments off my estimated AGI otherwise, like you, I would be paying $300/month. I'll see what they say once my grace period is up in November...

They advertise IBR as looking at your tax returns but apparently they rape you pretty hard your first year on IBR?

# ? Jul 17, 2011 20:59

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Lawyer & Law School Megathread #12: Started Out Barrister, Ended Up Barista

«‹›1550 »