Monday, October 26, 2009

"Let Them Eat Cake" - The Great CLE Scam



"Every day, I get at least one email from the New York City Bar, almost always offering some expensive for-pay CLE program. Yesterday, I received an email titled Better hurry up last chance to register for CLE class! This reminds me of an Indian tout on the street trying to hook you to go into their shop to spend some dough. So much for the illustrious image of the Bar with their grand office on West 44th Street with plaques of all their famous members (100% from the big law firms of course).

I have accepted at this point that the New York Bar will never do a thing to help my career and that they will give a license to anyone who will pay their unconstitutional annual fees. But they could spare us these desperate messages for CLE money. And with it, their usual veiled threats about what happens if you don't pay for CLE and you will be disbarred.

Howard Miller, the new big firm head of the California Bar, said that his contribution will be to force more pro bono work on California lawyers. California has 225,000 lawyers and has very high bar testing and annual fees. So they throw another burden on the funeral pyre of all their thousands of unemployed lawyers. While Miller says, "Let eat cake". Since he is living off their millions in fees."

38 comments:

Anonymous said...

first! say what?

Anonymous said...

I had to use one of my unemployment checks to pay for this crap. Not food, not rent, but some useless class taught by some rich blowhard that nobody paid attention to. Getting a hardship waiver is far from simple as they put you through a maze of red tape. The biglaw golden children don't have to pay for this shit, of course.

Baxter Davenport III said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Recruiter said...

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Anonymous said...

It is I, The Lord, The Lawland Prophet, The Great Truth Sayer that has been banned from the darkness that once was the great JDUndrground.

I did my CLE's last year for $100 without leaving my house. Do not, I repeat, do not, waste an additional penny on anything that is related to law.

Law is a dying, if not already dead, so-called "profession" for almost all but the few Preferred, Protected and or seriously Connected.

That means that you 0L's that are in Kaplan studying for the LSAT....quit now!. That means you 1 or 2L's at any lawschool beneath a top 14 ranked school....Drop out now! You are wasting valuable time and money for naught and misery. That means recent grads studying for the bar....Drop barbri...stop filing applications to the Bar exam folks....Stop studying to gain admission to a "profession" that is anything but professional. There are no jobs for all but a few fortunate WASPY ones or those connected folks of hooked nose.

Law is for the wicked, classist, racist and evil. It is not for most. Quit pouring money down the drain. Bar admission only leads to more time, money and lives wasted. Save yourselves now. Reach for any life preserver you can get a hold of because the god awful, satanic ship that is law is sinking fast.

You all have been warned by the prophet. God bless.

Anonymous said...

recruiter, are you requesting a bribe?

Anonymous said...

Evil fucking scumbags.

How will Lisa ever afford her braces?

Anonymous said...

The New York Bar is a den of thieves. I don't think every bar is so bad. Some of the bars really protect in-state residents and keep out out-of-staters and certainly wouldn't look at a Nigerian or other foreign LLM holder.

Question: when you apply for a job they give you a background, reference, credit, and bankruptcy check - maybe others. How does any of this apply to the Nigerians? I don't even think you can prove they are who they say they are. Such a joke!

Anonymous said...

Lisa has a dental plan, remember?

QP said...

I found that the ABA gives away free 1 hour CLE podcasts theoretically sanctioned by the NY bar (not in ethics, but you can't always get what you want) through iTunes. I haven't gotten my certificates back from my submission for credit, but if it does work, it's a good way to screw the Man and the ABA.

Also, for "transitional" NY lawyers, the DC Bar's CLE classes can be remarkably cheap, comparatively. I got all last year's NY and VA CLE out of the way for less than $350, including ethics. You have to be in DC, but some of us are.

Nando said...

At least Marie Antoinette got her comeuppance. The closest the pigs on the Bar committees will get to theirs is finding their wives in bed with Pedro the gardener. Then again, the pigs probably have their piece of ass on the side, too. (If there were any justice in the world, I suppose the bar committee member's wife would be getting punded from behind by a Nigerian "doc review specialist.")

Law is a pathetic "profession." The bar committees are there to serve the interests of Biglaw, and to remind the rest of us that they hold our prestigious, low-paying "careers" in their hands.

Anonymous said...

Could there be a more criminal organization than the Bars, especially the greedy New York and California bars?
Their cheating starts with licensing their friends' law schools and falsely promoting them, then forcing people to take Kaplan (and pay $1,000 plus the time) to pass their perfunctory exam (since everyone eventually passes), and then shaking you down for annual fees and CLE course payments.

There has never been a bigger racket in the world than the U.S. bar associations. They should be closed. What right do they have to regulate me? They can go F themselves.

Anonymous said...

Hey Tom, why don't you delete these idiodic "Lisa needs braces" posts? Really, Tom - time to start censoring the nonsense. How about also censoring the vulgarity? Not swearing, per se, but the vulgar sexual imagery, which doesn't belong here.

I believe the criticism of the Nigerian "lawyers" who are permitted to take US-educated and licensed attorneys' jobs is justified, but some of these comments need to be deleted. It's getting tiresome.

Anonymous said...

Is there anything you guys DON'T complain about?

You should rename this blog Tom the Bitching Moaning Craybaby Temp.

Anonymous said...

CLE's, bar fees, student loan payments drop these $22 an hour salaries down to about eight bucks an hour.

Anonymous said...

10:31 AM
totally agree regarding deleting the dumb fakees and sex stuff.

10:36 AM
"Is there anything you guys DON'T complain about?"

Yes so many illegitimate criticisms here!
Of course 10:36 AM cannot name one.

All the so-called criticisms here are just exposures of facts. But some people - maybe you 10:36 AM - don't want it aired in public.

Gotta keep the scam going!

Anonymous said...

Where is this commenter coming from--geographically and otherwise?

The Association of the Bar of the City of New York has nothing, formally or legally, to do with the State Bar of New York (i.e. through the Appellate Divisions, not the NYS Bar Association)--whether admission, discipline, etc. The city bar association--a voluntary association-- may have some advisory role re: state bar activities, but the two are distinct legal entities.

Also, how is the author worked up about New York and California CLE simultaneously? If you're admitted in both states, then meeting the CLE of one basically constitutes compliance with the other.

That said, as a CA attorney (originally, and still, licensed in NYS), I can say that there's a huge amount of fluff in CA CLE.

Anonymous said...

At my CLE more than a dozen people were sleeping or reading the newspaper. CLE's are basically a regressive tax that provides the biglaw cronies with extra play money.

Anonymous said...

CLE is totally BS but they really have you by the short ones. I guess the best thing is to do them for as little $ as possible. If by joining a bar association, you can get a discount, it may be worth it. The price of admission, I suppose.

Anonymous said...

links to today's articles on Law school loans and tuition:

http://www.abajournal.com/news/why_you_can_blame_us_news_instead_of_the_aba_for_high_law_school_tuition/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/26/while-law-school-tuition_n_334328.html

Anonymous said...

I was thinking of quitting after the first year. I had worked a year after undergrad so I had saved up enough that all I had out in loans was less than $20k and it was all just the Stafford loans. I still had some more money left over afterwards too. I figured I could transfer out after a year and I told myself if I didn't do well enough I'd just quit law school and do something else.

I didn't do well enough, only placing in the top third, but I continued anyway. I should have known that my grades would begin tanking after that, and I didn't have a job lined up after graduation. Now it's been over a year since I graduated and no real job in that time span. Eventually I probably can't keep deferring these loans and then I wonder what will happen. Law school was the biggest mistake of my life, and I will be paying for it for the rest of it. It's not like I even want much, just enough to have a roof over my head and to be able to eat food that isn't going to kill me. Law doesn't even really give you that.

Anonymous said...

I just did the same thing. Used unemployment money to pay for a CLE, so I could listen to some rich asshole drone on about mentoring and surviving firm life. Hey, we don't all work at big firms. Many of us aren't working at all. What a scam.

The Yuppie Attorney said...

They require you to have 2 hrs mandatory "ethics" CLEs; yet look at how the Bar acts.

* * *

Recently, my Bar has been allowing CLEs for Broker, CPA, and other job retaining classes. I think this is their polite way of asking a lot of us to leave the profession. HOw nice.

Captain Obvious said...

What 11:54 said:

***The Association of the Bar of the City of New York has nothing, formally or legally, to do with the State Bar of New York (i.e. through the Appellate Divisions, not the NYS Bar Association)--whether admission, discipline, etc. The city bar association--a voluntary association-- may have some advisory role re: state bar activities, but the two are distinct legal entities.***

That said, MiCLE offers fairly cheap first & second year complete CLEs (16 credits at $299 per year).

After that, there are quite a few free/damn cheap CLEs you can take (especially if you don't care about the subject matter). Hell sometimes NYCBar even provides free food, load up your briefcase with sandwiches and break even!

I'm not saying CLEs aren't generally a sucky scam; they just aren't the scam the poster claims they are.

Anonymous said...

Signing up for the West CLE center (or whatever it's called) is a pretty good option. You can get your CLEs by watching videos online.

selling my jd said...

let them eat cake !!!!!! solo practioners and document reviewers unite... dollar by dollar.. click..click.. click..

only if you are lucky enough to have a dead end click job..

Anonymous said...

You can generally do the CLEs for free or get a scholarship for them if you shop around. However, you have to be unemployed. You can also shop around and find cheap or free CLEs.

However, I have to agree, most of the CLEs are complete and useless BS.

Anonymous said...

CLE requirements, especially the "ethics" credits, are a hypocritical scam.

While the state bars either turn a blind eye to, or outright aid & abet the illegal outsourcing of legal work to India, they continue to suck $ out of new graduates.

Fuck this profession. Fuck the law schools.

Helga said...

We like the cussing and sexual inuendo. It, unlike our current financial circumstances, can actually be funny. We see a lot pathetic childish bitching, but very little substantive content in the posted comments. I've tried to get something going without success and have given up for now. So now I just throw out one-liners and try to cheer us up.

Cheers!!

Anonymous said...

If I didn't do anything but document review and coding I would file for an exemption from CLE requirements based on a good faith claim that I was not actively practicing law. You can claim this exemption in New York and still maintain your bar status. If ABA Ethics Opinion 08-451 states that it is ok to outsource the work overseas as non-practice of law, then I would think I have a good faith basis to claim exemption if all I did during the reportable period was document review.

Anonymous said...

PEEPS: Things are really starting to heat up in DC!!

Anonymous said...

7:18 - Nice logic, but good luck with that. Just like the agencies like to treat you like the 2nd shift peon at Walmart, and then turn around and claim that you are a professional exempt attorney for overtime purposes, the bar will do the same. No logic, only insanity.

Baxter Davenport III said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

If you are on a project and you feel you don't belong there YOU PROBABLY DON'T.

It's probably just for cretins and retards. Don't get depressed, GET MOVING!!!!

Anonymous said...

Feels like im earning

NOTHING AT ALL

NOTHING AT ALL

NOTHING AT ALL

NOTHING AT ALL

NOTHING AT ALL

NOTHING AT ALL


NOTHING AT ALL

NOTHING AT ALL

NOTHING AT ALL

NOTHING AT ALL

NOTHING AT ALL

stupid sexy unemployment
(lisa still needs braces)
(dental plan)

Anonymous said...

"Howard Miller, the new big firm head of the California Bar, said that his contribution will be to force more pro bono work on California lawyers."

Bullshit. Miller specifically said he was not advocating mandatory pro bono work. (Even if he'd prefer to, he knows what kind of firestorm it would set off if he tried it.)

Why don't you stick to being pissed off about real things instead of moaning about imaginary stuff you made up because your reading comprehension is so poor?

Anonymous said...

YOU WENT TO LAW SCHOOL BECAUSE YOU'RE INTELLIGENT AND HAVE AMBITION.

DON'T TAKE THIS SHIT LYING DOWN!!

GO OUT THERE AND INFORM COLLEGE STUDENTS, LAW STUDENTS, WANNA-BE LAW STUDENTS ABOUT THE TRUTH!!!

INFORM AMERICAN CITIZENS THAT WHAT THEY GET FROM A PROSECUTOR OR PUBLIC DEFENDER IS THE BOTTOM OF THE LEGAL ACADEMIC BARREL!!

GET YOUR ASS OUT THERE AND SPREAD THE TRUTH! YOU'RE BROKE ANYWAY!

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