Top-14 is fine - those are the national schools. 15 and below are regional law schools for the most part. Most of the third- or fourth-tier law schools should be closed. How can a crappy law school such as Thomas Cooley Law School charged about the same tuition as Harvard Law School, a far more prestigious law school?
The problem with law schools is that there are way too many law students and thus too many lawyers, which is diluting the profession. In order for the legal profession to work, law schools need to be more exclusive and admit less students. No one who has less than a 3.0 gpa and a 155 LSAT should be admitted to law schools. And Cooley should shut down completely.
Same situation in Germany. I graduated from Saarland University in 1983, then upgraded with a Certificate in European Integration at the same university, did not find a job in Germany, then upgraded to a doctor of international law at Geneva University Law School, only to see I was unable to get a job in Switzerland because of the fact that I did not get, as a German, a Swiss work permit (yes!), while three Swiss law firms wanted to hire me, and back in Germany, I was jobless. The United States is by far the country that has after all the best laws and customs for qualified law graduates to get a job. I do not agree with the negative views in this video.
When high quality education is seen as a public good and not a source of profit this problem will begin to resolve. This guy is basically talking about deskilling lawyers to deal with an unnecessary system of debt slavery. He talks about law school students as consumers, not citizens.
I feel for new grads. I graduated in 2002 and have been hustling ever since just to even build a decent savings. I finally have started my own firm after working for firms for 10 years because firms are now hiring new grads for a pitiful amount of money an then working them like dogs. Who wants to make $50k a year when that means 12 hours+ a day, high stress and all the money going to the fir owners...
What exactly is "perverse" about reducing minority scholarships and increasing the number of merit-based scholarships? That certainly seems fair to me! Why should someone be entitled to a scholarship solely based on skin color?
Giving scholarships to students with high LSAT and GPA scores doesn't seem perverse to me. Why not reward those who have worked hard in college and in studying for the LSAT? Some may argue the greater perversity is arguing as Segal does, that scholarships should be given on the basis of one's race, rather than one's academic achievements.
No joke. I always thought that was who scholarships were FOR (people that studied hard and excelled). I don't think that's perverse at all. However, scholarships based on race are ridiculous. Let's not base anything on race....oh, except scholarships. Seems ridiculous. If you're a minority and somehow at a disadvantage, and you study hard and excel, it shouldn't matter what color you are, you scored high and did well, here's your reward.
Law schools do things a little different than other schools. But one must also remember that schools are very similar to business in that if there isn't enough cash in, they won't survive.
The whole education industry is primarily a system whose main purpose is to provide a source of income for faculty, administrative personnel and janitors.
I think a similar problem exists with law schools as exists with most of the postsecondary institutions. Each school must have certain levels of funding. Many of these funding programs rely on enrollment. Therein lies the rub.
Why don't you take all that energy and start a business that actually creates jobs in your community? If you are going to take out more than $100k in loans you might as well have a building, customers and inventory to show for it. You're better off using your good credit to buy a house and renting out the extra rooms to pay your mortgage. Then you could live rent-free. Law school loans will sink your credit score. Good luck buying a house, then.
What about the people in general? The public demands cheap and affordable legal care which requires more lawyers to compete. We need lawyers to earn 40K per year so we can start businesses without going to jail for breaking complicated and vague regulations.
Two obvious solutions to the law school problem. Either end non-dischargeability of education loans so that a true market is created or let the bar exam for each state be the only standard allowing students to go to law school, apprentice with an experienced attorney, or study independently. It's not like law schools actually teach the practice of law anyway.
holy shit, are you serious?! cuz man going to law school's been my plan the past several years, since i started freshman year of college. im a junior now and im not sure what to think now
Hi!! I know this is an old post, but just in case you're interested in checking out more videos about law school, law firms, or being a lawyer in general, I do videos on all of that stuff! :) @associatetribe
The ur-problem is that law schools are meritocratic and the rest of the Ph. D. space has become dramatically less so. A number of "lawyers" are really people who did not get a Ph.D. and found that there are two roads left: M.D and Esq. The reason for this is because Professors want cheap bodies and find the in Ph.D. students. The Universities want drones and look for people who will do the dronework. This is larger than the law schools.
