Great article.
Love the description of the Joan King (see tab on right) phenomena:
"Take, for instance, the employment statistics posted on the Web sites of three low-ranked law schools in New York City, the country’s biggest market for legal employment. All three advertise that 45 to 60 percent of their 2008 graduates who reported salary information are making a median salary of $150,000 to $160,000.
Now, of course there must be some way of slicing and dicing the numbers to yield that magic result. But what happens, in practice, is that prospective degree-purchasers enroll in these $43,000-a-year programs believing their chances of landing that Big Law job are about one in two. Tempting odds."
ABA utterly out of touch:
"The American Bar Association, which continues to approve law schools with impunity and with no end in sight, bears complicity in creating this mess. Yet a spokeswoman, citing antitrust concerns, says the A.B.A. takes no position on the optimal number of lawyers or law schools."
A whole future generation of low wage sweatshops coming down the pike:
"Meanwhile, as job opportunities abate, law school matriculation rates rise unchecked. Each year, the number of students who enroll at one of 200 law schools approved by the American Bar Association inches closer to 50,000."
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/hold-for-tues-pm-another-view-lock-the-law-school-doors/
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And tuition continues to skyrocket. This bubble be popping.
Tom, Another tidbit is that the law schools in NYC and its surrounding environs attract unwitting Adjunct Professors to teach the courses that the full tenured Professors deem to be "beneath" them. You know, those amazingly intellected Law School Professors, many of whom have not set foot in either a courtroom or a Law Firm and, if they have, likely did so for no more than 2 or 3 years prior to latching on to the Law School money train. These "Adjuncts" are unwittingly suckered into committing to several hours per week beyond the 1-3 they initially signed up for (due to fielding inane and volumnious student and faculty questions/emails, preparing for classes and grading nonsensical student papers), all for low to mid single digit 4 figures per academic year. That I can assure you averages out to much less than what your average document coder pulls in. All so the mostly liberal and self indulged "Professors" can extend their bubbled lives within the confines of academia, on the dimes of unsuspecting students, all the while working 3-4 hours per day (I mean actual work).
If you think that the faculty freeze at BLS was a positive move to deal with the current economic crisis, consider the following facts:
1.The salary freeze announced by the dean was supposed to justify a tuition freeze–but as the dean has made clear in letters to the students tuition will be limited to the same increase as last year which was 6% increase resulting in a tution of 42k plus for one year–one of the highest law schoo tutions in new york. Room and board for students was increased by 25 % last year. Limiting an increase to the increase last year would mean that Brooklyn maintains a profitable position for the 2009-10 academic year.
2.The school has an on going building construction project for the entry to the main building which is purely cosmatic designed by one of the most expensive archectects in the city.The project has been delayed by german marble imported from germany. (The old entry was clean, functional and quite pleasant.) In a time of economic recession that now justifies a salary freeze one must wonder why the dean has decided to invest in a project that only put lipstick on the building without improving the functionality of the institution. the money could have been better spent on technology.
3. The Dean has some of the best salary and benefit packages when compared to other deans in the New York law school community. She is given a luxury auto (a lexus) with a driver to take her to her home in Westhester even though she is also give a free apartment in the new law school dorminatory fully furnished. These expenses that go solely to the personal use of the Dean could finance several tuition scholarships.I mention this because a salary freeze is meaningless to anyone in her position.
4.The dean of Brooklyn law school is paid a salary that is now more that the salary paid to President Obama. It is hard to justify a nearly $550 yearly salary for administering a non-profit academic institution and if the school were to take just 30 percent of dean salary to reduce student tuition the dean would stil be earning $385 K per year–more than fair for a dean salary.
5. The dean was denied tenure at NY University school of Law and was able to become dean because of the support of the prior dean, Judge David Trager. This is relevant because it should be a factor in dermining what the dean salary should be in light of her experience.
6. The three top faculty members earn in excess of $250k per year with benefits.
So–if you are making the kind of salary that the dean makes or the three top paid faculty members, a salary freeze is not all that bad and if it serves the purpose of providing extra resourses for new building construction projects while mainating a 61/2 per cent tutition increase then it does make alot of sense. On the other hand, for the majority of the faculty at Brooklyn who earn under $150 the salary freeze means they are paying a greater percentage of the subsidy along with the student tuition that is now going to support the top wage earners at the school.
Brooklyn Law School is a good example of how the current economy is being used by administrators and managers to act opportunistically by taking advantage of those most in need during the current economic downturn.
10:51--- I am not joking when I say that you should call Fox 5 news about that---Arnold Diaz "Shame on You". The only way that exhorbitant salary and perq package gets cut down is by shaming BLS into doing so. The laws of contract alone will not allow it. I am serious. Do NOT be bashful. That package is ridiculous and simply not justified or justifiable based upon present circumstances.
Its time that these ultraliberal Law School Professors and Deans put there money where there mouths are and cut their astronimic pay packages, as they implore CEO's of actual moneymaking endeavors to do.
Hypocrites all.
Shame on you? What about the fucking Justice Department? These clowns with there slicing and dicing of numbers and dishing out of unsustainable debt loads are playing the same games that the subprime sharks used to bring down our economy. I love how problems aren't resolved in this country until after there is a chaotic collapse.
Call the Justice Department and then call Shame on You and the see who gets quicker results.
Half of the Justice Department probably went to BLS. Moreover, Obama was himself an overpaid, underexperienced Law School Professor so I'd doubt he'd be apt to sic his Justice Department on Law School faculty compensation arrangements.
When I got my LL.M. at NYU (which took a few years because I had to commute a long way after work), I did not see a single regular faculty member. All were adjuncts, of variable quality as teachers.
Joan Wexler is the Bernie Madoff of higher education.
the fulltime law school profs and the law school deans are primarily grads of the elite and first tier law schools. Thus, the law school cartel mainly operates to benefit the parasitic subsociety of elite law school grads.
A story by Arnold Diaz out of a local tv outlet wouldn't faze Joan Wexler. The WSJ article from several years back really shook their cage though. Get Michael Moore, or John Stossel.
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This is a vicious self-feeding cycle. The more people are out of work or at a dead end the more they think going to law school is the magic wand.
The flood of law school grads has meant everyone and his brother has a J.D. (except the Nigerians, who are also the only ones who can get jobs sopping up the black quota).
It's as prestige as being a dog catcher but far more time wasting and costly.
With Shame on You and Michael Moore you will never, ever be able to counter the propaganda machine. I told students all the time don't go to law school, and they always had that look "We know better. Just because you failed doesn't mean I will."
I went to a high rated law school, Hofstra, and have never had a steady job.
Come on people! You can't be serious? If any prospective law student took 30 mins to research where second and third tier NYC law graduates work it would be clear their salary is no where near 150K.
This is NYC. No one tells the truth. Everyone is a salesman. If there's a group of gullable boobs willing to buy such a line of crap, it's no wonder that same group could not get into one of the respected schools in the area.
Take off your blind-fold and go cry victim somewhere else.
Hofstra Law School is a complete joke. It makes Rutgers look like Harvard.
I went to Seton Hall Law and worked at NYC BIGLAW for 8 years, but that is not the norm. I'd suspect (guess, really) that from that school, 5-7% or less go to NYC BIGLAW, if that many, 40% get a state (NJ) trial level clerkship, 1-2% get a federal trial level clerkship, 10-15% get an NJ BIGLAW and/or NJ/NY in house job and the rest do doc review and/or work at Whole Foods.
The WSJ law blog picks up on the NYTimes "close the law
school doors" article
you know the drill!
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/09/02/are-law-school-applicants-like-gatsbys-revelers/
Hofstra sucks! what are you smoking?
When I worked at S&C I got to know a fat associate who had gone to school at Albany. She said she got the job at this firm through CONNECTIONS. That's how it works. Either you go to good school and are MEGA-NERD or you know someone.
A law degree is definataly worth the money, but you have to get experience to go with it. It doesn't magically give you a job paying 160K.
You're NEVER going to get a high paying job if you continue to do doc. review. Take a lower paying job while the ecnomomy is screwed up and then lateral to the high paying job when hiring picks up again.
By continuing to do doc. review at the moment, you're not making that much money and you're not gaining experience. When hiring picks up, you'll go from 30 to 35 an hour, while the guys who have been geeting experience at 40K will jump to a job paying 80-100K. Or they'll get a raise from the place they work at so they don't leave.
Why is the NYC contract market in the crapper? DC is really on the uptick. Freaking Update Legal has 3 mega gigs going on down there at $33 a pop and my ex-roomie says everybody is starting to get calls. And it is not all foreign languge stuff like here. Their shit ain't going to India. Why not us?
2:01,
You must be on some REALLY good drugs...I think anyone with half a brain knows that you don't "lateral" from shitlaw into biglaw and that the experience thing is just more bullshit. I have seen resumes of hundreds of people with vastly more legal experience than myself who couldn't get hired for a job making $25K as a lawyer. WHY? BECAUSE THEY DO NOT EXIST. There are not enough jobs for the glut of lawyers out there. Even if I wanted (which I don't because I'm jumping this sinking ship) to find a legal job making $40K I couldn't do it because there aren't enough to go around. You don't "TAKE" a job as a lawyer in this economy. You make it sound like these jobs are everywhere and so easy to get.
Oh, and the doc review market's pretty dead too so it's not like it's a big choice between doing doc review or "taking" a job making $40K.
Charlie Korsmo went from associate at S&C to traching Torts at BLS?!!
Why be a temp doc reviewer making $33/hour when you can be a perm paralegal making $36/hour? do the math..sadness..Why be a temp doc reviewer making $33/hour when you can be a perm paralegal making $36/hour? do the math..sadness..Why be a temp doc reviewer making $33/hour when you can be a perm paralegal making $36/hour? do the math..sadness..Why be a temp doc reviewer making $33/hour when you can be a perm paralegal making $36/hour? do the math..sadness..Why be a temp doc reviewer making $33/hour when you can be a perm paralegal making $36/hour? do the math..sadness..Why be a temp doc reviewer making $33/hour when you can be a perm paralegal making $36/hour? do the math..sadness..Why be a temp doc reviewer making $33/hour when you can be a perm paralegal making $36/hour? do the math..sadness..
When I worked at S&C I got to know a fat associate who had gone to school at Albany. She said she got the job at this firm through CONNECTIONS. That's how it works. Either you go to good school and are MEGA-NERD or you know someone.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Of if you are a hot female you could get a pussy pass. I know someone who got into CWT Corporate in NYC with nothing more than a couple of years at some regional firm doing litigation. But she was hot.
Pfizer to pay record $2.3B penalty over promotions - Yaaaaay, I hope parrot-nose paralegal Heather B gets fired!!!! This bitch was working in compliance - probably ACTING important than working....
I know a sad, sad partner at CWT who would bag a dead goat. he is going through messay divorce with his wife who bit his ear and he beat her in their UES towmhouse!!! Look it up....he was going bald and losing his hair and banging everything in sight....
I hope he burns in hell. He treated really nive people like SHIT!!
Pfizer fined billions...hope Parrot-Nosed Heather B gets fired!!
Pfizer fined billions...hope Parrot-Nosed Heather B gets fired!!
Pfizer fined billions...hope Parrot-Nosed Heather B gets fired!!
Pfizer fined billions...hope Parrot-Nosed Heather B gets fired!!
Pfizer fined billions...hope Parrot-Nosed Heather B gets fired!!
Seton Hall sucks, especially that pig Boozang
UPDATE OFFERING $25/hour 3 WEEK PROJECT, CALLING FROM BOSTON!!! DON'T ANSWER THEM!!!
Maybe Pfizer' Parrot-Nose Paralegal Heather B's time has come. Amen!!
Does anyone know if Lisa needs braces? should I forgo the dental plan?
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It' about time the mainstream media is catching in! We've been saying this for years.
Now if we could just get the ABA to stop this abominable practice of outsourcing (shitsourcing)....
I LOVE Helga!! She just posted a picture of paralegal/queen bee Parrot-Nosed Heather B. from Pfizer!!
That is exactly what Heather looks like - but she thinks she looks like a Sex and The City gal!! I don't think she has a mirror at home- poor girl!! Now all my arch-enemies have been covered - you're the best Helga
I tried to find a good parrot-nosed female photo but may have struck out. Will work more on this over the weekend. Until then... click, click, click...
Glad that it wasn't you who called me at 5:30 a.m., Mr. German Porn Internet Guy. Probably just a random act of strangeness or a butt dial off a cell phone by somebody with a breathing disorder.
Mean time, I'm trying to figure out what to do next. Stand-up comic routine? Avon sales lady? Greeter at Wal Mart?
Who are your favorite diabolical managing (and other) partners? There has to be many!! Let's get some trafffic on this web site about these people.
The reason the ABA keeps on accrediting all these law schools is that most of them are started by lawyers who want to make huge bank in a cushy law professor job (by exploiting suckers), and the ABA knows that these people are LITIGIOUS and will sue them left, right and center if their applications for accreditation are "unreasonably" denied. So they keep pushing the envelope and the accreditation standards become weaker and weaker as more and more shitty law schools are accepted into the fold.
This doesn't happen with medical schools because AAMC, the board that governs med schools, isn't as afraid of law suits because the people who want to start med schools are not as litigious... and so the standards are kept MUCH higher.
The ABA is afraid of law suits from these applicants starting new and shitty law schools for this reason:
There is only one ABA, but possibly tens or scores of new law schools applying for accreditation every year. Defending themselves from a law suit by one disgruntled applicant would be bad enough -- that is one ABA versus one disgruntled law school.
But having to potentially defend themselves against TENS of disgruntled rejected law schools, all led by litigation-crazy lawyers, is too much for them to bear -- it's not worth the effort or the money. Defending themselves in lawsuits brought by, say, 5-7 new "law schools" each year is way too expensive to do, hence they tend to capitalate in most cases.
The ABA is the sole gatekeeper because they do set the rules and accredit new law schools.
What the American legal profession needs is a new organization funded by law schools above a minimum standard -- like AAMC in medical education.
Notice that it is *not* the AMA that accredits medical schools, but a much stricter body that ONLY concentrates on medical school accreditation and academic standards -- AAMC -- the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Helga, Well, you can start with Ira Schacter partner at CWT - read 3:19 post. He beat up his wife and she bit him - look him on the Internet, his pic is there, maybe you can find something similar - The Daily News also did a piece on him with comments from readers which described him as slovenly, prone to touch himself!! And having a social disorder...don't they all??
Helga I worked briefly at Davis & Gilbert and there was this Paki lawyer, a 27 year old shrimp, two bit gal S. Keen, who yelled at all the temps. [You can look her up too] Many of the temps were actually more qualified than her - but she would call them into her office and let out yelps in a very high-pitched manic like she was in some Third World slum - even the secretaries sitting outside were perturbed. She would SHRIEK - I have worked at BigLaw and smalllaw, and in various countries and never ever heard someone with that kind of education and any kind of breeding yell like such a ghetto queen. It was weird...
Janice & Ira
Sitting in a tree
H-i-t-t-i-n-g
Such a circus, these two.
As for Ms. Keen, she has put herself foward as an activist for some time now but her ideas do not seem so well formed - but she's still young. hahahahahahaha Actually, she may be a one-woman PR firm serving herself: get yourself quoted in Wiki on some historic event (like the partition of India & Pakistan)and watch it snowball.
"A law degree is definataly worth the money,"
Need I say more about the minds that go to law school?
Bad in all other subjects now English too.
So can we lift our legs on any of the BigLaw Big Dogs???
I spent a lot of money at Hofstra and was told it was the path to money. I haven't met any Hofstra co-grads anywhere except the unemployment office. Paying back our loans - or not.
5% of Seton Hall are at Big law - sure! Try zero.
Joan King says "You can succeed anywhere. It all depends on you."
TTT law schools = Pyramid/Ponzi Scheme
Law schools make me sick. Law faculties need to be pared down and at least 20 ABA schools need to close immediately. The educational and professional model needs to be reevaluated and overhauled. Our jurisprudence is in the dark ages. No simple fixes exist. The system is more concerned with profit than providing sustainable, effective, and efficient justice. The French model of training and organizing its lawyers is worth looking at for comparison.
Here's to hoping the ass and pussy cancer visits all those cunts at update legal!
And a special heart felt fuck you and die to christi julien,
Update Legal reminding all our staff attorneys about appropriate attire at the work place.
This should be a business suit for men and a dressy pants suit with high heels for women. Men should wear ties at all times, and women should dress modestly and like a partner would.
This muslim/paki chick S. Keen at Davis & Gilbert probably billed herself as an "activist" to get into Columbia Law. Columbia will believe anything about Muslim/paki women. What else was she going to do with a CREATIVE WRITING degree with Emory - for fuck's sake. Her eye was probably on corporate law, big money and UWS apartment the whole time and she rode the broken back of "downtrodden" south asians all the way to a yuppie lifestyle. Oh and if this pussy is such a "bleeding heart liberal" that her heart cries out for the poor and beaten then why does this cunt scream at temps. Sounds like this Third World Queen thinks she owns the place. Don't worry time will teach her she is not any grander than any of us.
Big Mamma at S&C beats up on temps as well and then runs some clothing drive and get advertised by S&C as a model staffer!! These law firms know what these cunts are really about but they use them to look good!!
Juris Staff has a new gig that requires NYS Bar Admission and pays $23 an hour flat rate for 60 hours!
Deflate the Rate!
The rate will keep falling. It's Economics 101. The supply of lawyers + foreign LLM supply is virtually unlimited. No jobs. But idiot temps still say "I made the right decision by getting the J.D."
Parrot-nose Heather B. the Pfizer Paralegal is a real pain to work for. She loves to boss temp lawyers around. I don't know what guys would find her attractive with her beak shaming their size.
The situation is serious. The ABA is allowing the outsourcing of the "bread and butter" legal functions to India and online shops, e.g. Doc Review, Wills, Trust ,incorporation, divorces. This is decreasing the need for US attorneys. The ABA has accredited over 100 new law schools in the past 30 years regardless of need. This act is saturating the attorney job market. The ABA solution to these problems: "raise the Bar admission requirements." Seriously, If you have 100K in debt and no other means of paying it off; you are going to plug away at the Bar Exam till you past it. You would have not other choice but to pass. The solution is to stop the glut before law school. It is the cheapest and easiest method.
* * *
I did like the adjunct professors in law school. At my school, they were mostly local judges and practitioners that did not have time to give you grief. IT was a breath of fresh air from the legal theorists.
Whew! glad i didn't take on all that 3rd tier law school debt...got a perm paralegal gig and make close to 100k, full benefits and my own office!! sure beats being an unemployed temp doc reviewer..whos the fool????
To clear up some confusion demonstrated on the part of many: the supply and demand of lawyers is not determined by free market principles so any arguement espousing that free market supply -demand principles are involved is extremely misleading. A taxpayor subsidy to the law schools and banks in the form of government backed loans determines the supply of lawyers. This misunderstanding applies to many areas of American economic life and is typical. Its like that lady at the town hall meeting complaining that she didn’t want the government messing with her medicare. Once again, law school candidate supply is mainly determined by government welfare to law schools and banks at the expense of the misguided law school students and lawyers. Theres is also a substantial marketing factor on the part of the ABA/ government/educational complex along with some fanciful media portrayals of lawyers contributing to the glut as well.
-PubliusEsq
I just wanted to say thank you to the Deans at those "low ranked schools" in NYC for opening their doors to those who truly seek a legal education. I was not promised easy street by my Dean. In fact he cautioned us in the beginning that only 10% of the grads would get the Big offers. That left the other 90% who would be paid much less than 100K. Law school should not be an opportunity for the elites alone. You have to make your own way in this world and if you thought that a JD would make you rick overnight you were kidding yourself. Bottom-line and a little reality check, those low ranked schools in NYC produce some of the best attorneys in the country.
The ABA will never stop authorizing new Law Schools because more law schools = more attorneys and more attorneys = greater money/power for the ABA.
not really
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