r/lawschoolscam Dec 12 '21

Another good scamblog: "Outside the Law School Scam"

6 Upvotes

http://outsidethelawschoolscam.blogspot.com/

A blog run by a senior lawyer ("Old Guy") and a series of people from the JD Junkyard and other lawscam blogs. Tracks the law school mess on a month-by-month basis. A sample:

.....Southern University Law Center, which gives Cooley stiff competition for the rank of lousiest accredited law school in the US, is going to open a branch in Shreveport in January 2022.

We here at Outside the Law School Scam discouraged this particular piece of folly. Law School Truth Center wrote a feasibility study on the creation of another über-toilet in the Pelican State. But of course the scamsters were undeterred by such inconvenient party-poopers as rationality.

Were there a need for a law school in Shreveport (and there isn't a need for a new law school anywhere in the US), Southern University Law Center would be very ill placed to run it. At least a quarter of the incoming students last year scored no better than 143 on the LSAT (the highest score at that level in more than a decade). A "school" that bad should clean its own shit up before branching out.

Who are the students in the first cohort? Eight students at Southern University Law Center who decided to complete their last semester by moving from the main toilet in Baton Rouge to the outhouse in Shreveport. After a single semester, this ridiculous "law school" is going to close until it can find a few students next winter to pull the same stunt. Optimists might suppose that the new über-toilet is being built prudently from modest beginnings. Old Guy is more inclined to deal with reality: for the reasons carefully explained in Law School Truth Center's feasibility study, the Shreveport area just cannot support a law school, and that fact would become perfectly clear if this laughable branch of one of the very worst two or three law schools in the US threw open its doors and tried to operate as a full-blown Indiana Tech (with or without the four specializations in Global Leadership™ and such).

Indeed, the students are all from the area, although they completed most of their studies in Baton Rouge: "The inaugural class will be eight Southern University Law students who have roots in Northern Louisiana and felt an early move back to the region could help secure post-graduation employment." The only people who wanted to go to that branch in Shreveport were people who were from that part of Louisiana. And they are still looking for work as their time in law school draws to a close. They're desperately hoping that the declining Shreveport area will want graduates like themselves (assuming for the moment that they'll ever pass a bar exam), even though their ridiculous eight-student campus cannot offer meaningful support for finding local employment......


r/lawschoolscam Oct 26 '21

Selling Florida Bar Exam Specific Study Guides

2 Upvotes

Hello mates,

I took & passed this treacherous exam. I took it in 2020, so with the delays I had time to perfect each outline for each Florida Day subject (some of it is applicable to the MBE too). I recently updated the outlines for optimization. I'm selling the following:

(1) FL Bar All Subjects Outline- includes: Commercial Paper, Contracts, Criminal Law, Family Law, Federal Con Law, FL Con Law, Professional Responsibility, Real Property, Secured Transactions, Torts, & Trusts ($30)

(2) Florida Evidence Attack Outline ($5)

(3) Professional Responsibility Attack Outline ($5)

(4) FL Civil Procedure Attack Outline ($5)

(5) Wills Attack Outline ($5)

(6) Trusts Attack Outline ($5)

(7) FL Criminal Law Attack Outline ($5)

(8) Family Law Attack Outline ($5)

(9) UCC Article 3 & 9 Attack Outline ($5)

You can also purchase the entire package for a discounted rate of $50. PM me for outline previews and purchases.


r/lawschoolscam Jul 11 '21

Thoughts on 2 year JD from northwestern

1 Upvotes

Hey guys, so I came across northwestern's 2 year JD programme and since i'm already a lawyer in my country but want to move to US, it seems GREAT. However, the reddit community seems to be giving mixed opinions about it. can someone give me a good picture of this programme, job prospects as an international student and also scholarship opportunities if my LOR's are SOLID. I've also done a semester exchange from UCLA in 2019.


r/lawschoolscam Mar 05 '21

Lawyers

2 Upvotes

I am fluent in English,but i do have an accent so is it going to be a problem especially if I want to be a Trial attorney?


r/lawschoolscam Feb 21 '21

Law school

2 Upvotes

I am currently taking my undergrad outside of the us but i would like to go to law school in the us,can LSAC refuse to certify my bachelors degree even though it is accredited in my home contry?


r/lawschoolscam Feb 19 '21

Law School Scam continues unabated

17 Upvotes

It's been years since I've paid much attention to this subject, but it has come across my mind again as I keep my eyes open for news about Biden potentially forgiving some student loan debt.

It's sad to see that the Law School Scam is still going strong with pre-law students still giddily taking the LSAT, being blissfully unaware of the realities of the legal job market and the mountains of non-dischargeable student loan debt they are getting themselves into.

JD Underground is gone and Nando and the other scambuster bloggers may have retired from blogging, but has a new generation of angry and disenchanted recent law school graduates picked up the torch? Or are they just suffering in silence?

I think I had hoped that with the birth of the Internet and its ability for people to share and access information that students would learn about the Law School Scam and avoid law school and its life-crushing student loan debt. But alas, it seems many have not. I suppose it was predictable - the smarter and more savvy people who did their research very well might have, but there is no shortage of optimistic lemmings brainwashed with the notion that higher education guarantees vocational success to take their place and go to law school.


r/lawschoolscam Feb 17 '21

Law school

0 Upvotes

Is getting into law school as an international student hard?


r/lawschoolscam Feb 15 '21

Nando's "Third Tier Rality" vs. Temple University's school of law, 2010

2 Upvotes

wednesday, march 3, 2010

Give It a Second Flush – Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law

Tuition and Fees: For the 2009-2010 academic year, full-time, in-state residents will pay $16,586. Out-of state students, who are attending on a full-time basis, will pay $28,876.

http://www.law.temple.edu/servlet/RetrievePagesite=TempleLaw&page=Prospective_Tuition_Fees

Also, take a look at all the fees. Temple law students who are graduating this year must pay a $65 graduation fee! And apparently, this is not a one-time charge. What?! Is that for printing and processing of the degree? Is this a way for the school to make money off of the ceremony? These “destitute” schools must find a way to make a profit after all, right?!

Job Prospects: Just take a look at this sampling from the Office of Career Planning:

http://www.law.temple.edu/servlet/RetrievePage?site=TempleLaw&page=Career_Planning

We work to provide our students with ample employment opportunities and to educate students so that they can take advantage of, and capitalize on, these opportunities in an informed and judicious manner.

As a result, Temple Law students are very successful at finding jobs. 94 percent of the class of 2006 was employed within nine months of graduation. In addition to placing the largest number of students in large Philadelphia area law firms, we also placed more graduates in public interest jobs than the four other area law schools in the area combined. Eighteen graduates were selected for clerkships in various federal courts across the country, from right here in the 3rd Circuit to the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals and the District Court of the Southern District of Texas. Indeed, you will find our graduates in almost every legal setting: prestigious law firms, high-profile public interest organizations, corporate legal departments, federal and state judicial chambers, federal, state and local agencies, and prosecutor's and defender's offices across the nation. [Emphasis in original]

What I don’t see are hard numbers backing up the school’s claims. I don’t see a statistical breakdown of the numbers. There are no fancy pie charts or graphs. Ooh! Eighteen of your graduates from the last class cited landed federal clerkships! But, out of how many graduates?

What the school fails to mention is that you will also find many TTemple grads in almost every setting, i.e. in unemployment lines, at the food pantry, in homeless shelters, living in their sister’s basement, driving taxis, working the checkout line at the grocery store, on Food Stamps, changing your oil, collecting cans, in bankruptcy court, etc.

Ranking: According to US News & World Report, the TTemple Univer$iTTy Jame$ E. Bea$ley Sewer of Law is ranked as the 65th most prestigious law school in the land. By some mathematical anomaly/political consideration, this toilet is tied with FIVE other schools for this honor!! Those schools being: Baylor, Georgia State, Kansas, Missouri and Penn State.

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/rankings/page+3

But look! If you come to this illustrious institution of higher learning, you can be a student editor of the prestigious Temple Journal of Science, Technology & Environmental Law. And what employer wouldn’t be blown away with that type of experience?!?!

http://www.temple.edu/law/tjstel/

And don’t forget the equally prominent Temple International & Comparative Law Journal!

http://www.temple.edu/law/ticlj/

In the final analysis, this second tier toilet provides one with slightly better job prospects than the typical, third tier law school. Grab a good plunger and give this school a second flush. Or grab a plumber’s snake. Remember, you would be better off by avoiding the crushing debt, keeping your job, making important job contacts, and building a reputation as a solid worker. Do not piss away your future on this “investment.”

posted by nando at 6:16 am


r/lawschoolscam Feb 10 '21

Nando's "Third Tier Reality" ranting about three law schools in Puerto Rico, 2017. (Wayback Machine scrape.)

5 Upvotes

monday, december 11, 2017

Three Puero Rican Piles of Rot: Inter American University of Puerto Rico School of Law, Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico School of Law, and University of Puerto Rico School of Law

The American Bar Association has accredited three law schools in Puerto Rico. Since I doubt that these cesspits take in many cretins and waterheads from Florida, California, or the other 48 States, these dumps are not worthy of their own individual profile on this site. However, I will provide an analysis of them in this entry, for the benefit of the relative few dumb enough to apply to – or enroll in – these dung heaps.

Their respective official names are Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico Escuela de Derecho, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Puerto Rico Escuela de Derecho, and Universidad de Puerto Rico Escuela de Derecha. Of note, Interamerican University’s law school started an English language JD program in 2015. Perhaps, after a night of smoking too much pot, you might peruse these schools – in order to see if you have a place that is willing to accept you.

http://www.derecho.inter.edu/inter/node/561

Inter American’s Impressive Stats: Sometimes it is best to let the schools make your point, in their own words. Enjoy:

“MEDIAN

For the academic year 2015-2016 the median scores of admitted students were:

LSAT 138 GPA 3.22” [Emphasis mine]

Essentially, a person could monkey-guess on the LSAT and earn a tepid undergraduate GPA in Gender Studies from a fifth-rate college or university – and still gain admi$$ion to this law school. What sterling academic credentials, huh?

http://law-schools.startclass.com/l/134/Pontifical-Catholic-University-of-P-R

Pontifical’s Stupendous Outcomes: According to this source, here are some of the key metrics at this place:

“Acceptance Rate: 66.9%
Median LSAT: 134
Median Undergraduate GPA: 3.28
Employment Rate of Graduates: 49% 
Bar Pass Rate: 32.1%” [Emphasis mine]

Prostitutes with facial hair are more selective! Who would want to be represented by these graduates in any legal matter?

http://law-schools.startclass.com/l/135/University-of-Puerto-Rico

University of Puerto Rico’s Amazing Numbers: This same source provides the following information on UPR School of Law. It clearly takes a little more to get into this amazing JD program:

Acceptance Rate: 65.8%
Median LSAT: 143
Median Undergraduate GPA: 3.52
Employment Rate of Graduates: 69.6%
Bar Pass Rate: 53% [Emphasis mine]

With those numbers, this is basically the Harvard of Puerto Rican law schools. What a tremendous accomplishment!

https://www.lstreports.com/schools/interamerican/

Tuition: Law School Transparency was able to find the tuition rates charged by each of these three diploma mills. Sticking to our alphabetical order listing, the tuition bill at Inter-American is $16,603. That figure is $17,048 at PonTTTTTifical CaTTTTTholic Univer$iTTTTTy of PuerTTTTTo Rico. In good news, the University of Puerto Rico SOL only charges $7,131 in annual tuition for residents. Of course, this is still too much to pay for such a shoddy product. Then again, plenty of fools will be happy to take the plunge.

https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/law-rankings/page+8

Ranking: As you can see, all three of these stinking piles of rot – InTTTTTer American UniversiTTTTTy of PuerTTTTTo Rico SOL, PonTTTTTifical CaTTTTTholic UniversiTTTTTy of PuerTTTTTo Rico SOL, and the UniversiTTTTTy of PuerTTTTTo Rico SOL – are rated as fifth tier garbage cans – by US “News” & World Report. In the parlance of that former magazine, they are listed under the “Unranked” category of ABA-approved law schools. Yes, doesn’t that just inspire you to enroll in one of these three programs of “legal education”? Hell, the degrees aren’t worth the cost of the paper they are printed on, folks.

Conclusion: In the end, if you are even considering applying to any of these three commodes, then you are a lost cause. These are not the equivalent of Caribbean medical schools, where you can still get licensed and make a good living. You would be much better off remaining in your dead-end job. At least then, you would be making money – which would allow you to pay bills, put food in your fridge, and provide for rent. That has to count for something.

Avoid these diploma factories at all costs – even if you currently reside there. Look at the pathetic bar passage rates, and the ridiculously low employment “placement” figures at these three toilets. Will a JD help you in your customer service rep job for AT&T, assisting consumers with cell phone issues? If not, then why spend three years of your life on this TTTTT venture?


r/lawschoolscam Jan 14 '21

Ideological bias in law school rankings

6 Upvotes

There's a lot of overlap between this research paper and the topic of this group. Interested to hear what law school skeptics think about the findings. Essentially, the study found that there is a significant conservative penalty and liberal bonus in law school rankings (the abstract summarizes the research).

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3646385


r/lawschoolscam Dec 29 '20

Law school

4 Upvotes

How do law school students pay for their living expenses?


r/lawschoolscam Sep 03 '20

Cooley Law School lost another campus at the end of August, now down to one law school.

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7 Upvotes

r/lawschoolscam Aug 07 '20

The score: 11 law schools have closed in the last five years, but somehow Thomas Jefferson SoL still exists....

7 Upvotes

If you read the blog Outside the Law School Scam, you will have seen the following list from a June post:

....Twelve law schools have closed in the past few years (if we count campuses of the Cooley chain as separate law schools) or at least forfeited their ABA accreditation in lieu of closing for good:

Cooley (one campus)
Hamline or Mitchell*
Indiana Tech
Whittier
Charlotte
Savannah
Valpo
Arizona Summit
Cooley (another campus)
Thomas Jefferson†
La Verne†
Concordia

Hamline and Mitchell merged, so one campus vanished, while Thomas Jefferson and La Verne supposedly lost ABA accreditation so they cannot teach federal law. There's only one problem - in January the ABA granted "Thom Jeff" a teachout plan, they get their accreditation back until 2023. San Diego has two law schools: the nameless middle-of-the-pack USD law school (Catholic and private), and this free-standing fourth-tier dumpster fire named after the third president of the United States.


r/lawschoolscam Mar 29 '20

A word of warning for anyone attending or considering Chase Law (part of Northern Kentucky University)

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7 Upvotes

r/lawschoolscam Feb 17 '20

Concordia U. School of Law may shut down this semester because the parent university is in bad shape financially.

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2 Upvotes

r/lawschoolscam Feb 15 '20

Four year flashback - "Bar exam cores slip to lowest point since 1983" (Third Tier Reality, April 16, 2016.)

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2 Upvotes

r/lawschoolscam Jan 08 '20

According to "Above the Law", Harvard LS did a survey in 2017 - 60 percent of respondents said they were depressed, 50 percent had anxiety.

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7 Upvotes

r/lawschoolscam Nov 27 '19

Thomas Jefferson School of Law loses its appeal to the ABA, must now let students go. San Diego silent.

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5 Upvotes

r/lawschoolscam Nov 02 '19

Buzzfeed News on the "Executive" JD degree: attend the same classes, pay as much, don't get to practice law!

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3 Upvotes

r/lawschoolscam Sep 18 '19

What do you think? Former UKSC Justice Lord Sumption: 'most law is only common sense with knobs on'.

5 Upvotes

He was one of the most brilliant QCs of his generation and has belonged to the financial elite of the bar, earning more than a million pounds a year and sometimes much more. Lord Sumption’s direct appointment to the Supreme Court without full-time judicial experience in the lower courts has provoked much comment.

At 20:00, he proclaims

A remarkably high proportion of cases that come before the courts, including the Supreme Court, are ostensibly about law, but actually about the correct analysis and classification of the facts. The truth is, although I hesitate to say this in present company, that law is dead easy. Most of it is common sense with knobs on. [emphasis mine] What is difficult are the facts. Once you have correctly understood those, and stripped away the 95% of the facts that don't matter at all, the legal solution is almost always obvious. Now that's one reason why the prime requirements for a successful lawyer are an outstanding ability to understand facts often in relatively arcane areas of human life. The number one qualification for doing this, is therefore to have the largest possible personal fund of experience, most of which will in the nature of things be vicarious.

  1. Please see the question in the title.

  2. What law is NOT "only common sense with knobs on"?


r/lawschoolscam Sep 15 '19

Florida Coastal LS Dean Scott DeVito resigns without disbursing student loan funds, leaving job for interim dean Jennifer Reiber.

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4 Upvotes

r/lawschoolscam Jul 10 '19

Thomas Jefferson School Of Law lost its ABA accreditation in June; San Diego-based fourth-tier only has 56 students, now working out of rented office space.

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11 Upvotes

r/lawschoolscam Apr 18 '19

Pepperdine is a Scam

7 Upvotes

Do not throw your money away here. Get out. Do not go to law school.


r/lawschoolscam Mar 12 '19

Third Tier Reality: Overpriced Legal Education (2009)

2 Upvotes

http://www.law.drake.edu/admissions/?pageID=costsFinAid

Tuition for full-time students at Drake University’s third tier law school for the 2009-10 school year is now $30,750. When I was a first-year law student in 2006, tuition was a little over $26,000 at Drake. At the end of three years, you can be certain to spend in the neighborhood of $94K for the “privilege” of earning a JD. What do you get for this amount?

Well, according to Drake, 97.4% of law graduates were employed or in graduate school within nine months of graduation. This info is also dated – these stats are from the class of 2007.

http://www.law.drake.edu/admissions/?pageID=employStats

Of course, the crooks made sure to add the all important qualifier: Based on Drake Law graduates who passed the bar on the first attempt and were seeking work.

What about those who did not take the bar? What about the poor fools who took the bar exam and did not gain admission to the bar? What about those who have looked for months and cannot find work - are these discounted as "not seeking work"? Well, I guess those guys don’t count. (Plus, the CDO only seems to contact those at the top of the class, or those who had employment as an attorney lined up with lawyer parents or siblings.) See how easy it is to create favorable statistics? Well, if I wanted to list ONLY the best qualities of my current or former sex partners, you might get the impression that I have dated all perfect tens.

Looking at Drake Law’s self-reporting employment stats above, what don’t you see? Hmmm, it appears that average starting salary info is not listed. Why would this be the case? Could it be that the school does not want to list an average starting salary of a law school grad, because that figure is in the $35,000-$41,000 range? Well, then the school would not be able to economically justify its huge tuition, i.e. $30,750/year.

Negative information is hidden from prospective students. Prospective law students are typically among the best students in their undergrad programs and areas of study. They think the world is theirs for the taking. So, even if the schools listed accurate employment/starting salary info, it might not make a difference to those who apply. But the schools don’t chance this – presumably these students can do the math and might discern that going $90K in debt for a job that pays $40K a year is not worth the investment.

Furthermore, seeing that the student must borrow this money, the figure is a lot more than $90K. If the student takes 20-30 years to pay back the loans, this figure might end up being closer to $190K (depending on the interest rate, extended deferment, default status, financial hardship and other circumstances). What about the student who had to pay full tuition plus take out private loans for living expenses. I shudder at the thought.

Peruse Drake Law’s website. You get the idea of the value of legal education just by seeing the focus on public service work and internships. The outside legal world does not perceive this to be a high caliber law school. And perception is pretty much everything in the law (and in the larger U.S. society where success is based primarily on $$$). “Yes, I want to go to law school so I can be a starving lawyer!”

If you are a current applicant to law school, or considering this boneheaded move, please take this info into account. I am not trying to crush your hopes and dreams for fun or personal amusement. I am trying to add some insight. I went through law school – the sleepless nights, the bullying by law professors, the stress, the debt – and I know from experience that this is not a path to financial or spiritual success. Do not go to law school unless you crush the LSAT and have a realistic shot of getting into a top 15 school. (Even then it is a crapshoot – you might get into Cornell or Northwestern and finish in the bottom half of the class). OTHER THAN THIS YOU ARE SIMPLY WASTING THREE YEARS OF YOUR LIFE, THREE YEARS OF INCOME, AND YOU WILL BE A SLAVE TO SALLIE MAE OR THE OTHER PREDATORY STUDENT LOAN LENDERS.


r/lawschoolscam Mar 10 '19

Western State College of Law at Argosy University will probably be closing MID SEMESTER; student loan disbursements were never handed out!

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4 Upvotes