Frontline, the award-winning PBS documentary series, has recently run feature programs on the Madoff scandal, the financial/derivatives market meltdown, and other infamous swindles of late.
Yet it seems they’ve overlooked one of the biggest scams of all: the law school/student lending cartel. This festering cesspool is just begging to be pumped out. We have Dick Matasar of NYLS steering lemmings to a notorious student lender “loan shark” whose board he chairs, the obvious salary/employment fraud broadcast by the schools and the NALP, the total lack of jobs for new grads, tuitions increasing at 5 X the rate of inflation, and of course the ABA’s infamous 08-451 outsourcing opinion. Plenty of grist here for the Frontline scambusting mill.
Here’s the link to email Frontline your story idea:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/contact/
Make sure to forward this link to all your struggling friends. Just imagine the squirming TTT deans being confronted on national television with hordes of their pissed-off grads and held to answer for their patently bogus salary/employment brochures. Talk about must-see TV.
*NOTE to COMMENT POSTERS:
All racist/anti-Nigerian/anti-Semitic comments will be deleted, so don't waste your time. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves.
47 comments:
No one is going to "cover" our blight, since most people on the street e.g. non-professionals who are victims of the last three (3) years merely presume it is a combination of attorneys, accountants, regulators (those who didn't do their job in federal and state agencies),state and federal legislators, and economists who sold them a bill of goods - that they bought hook line etc. Maybe one day they'll equate that with just another attorney in the White House and in fact realize they are walking down the yellow brick road with him too.
People hate lawyers. No way this gets picked up.
What about the $20,500 in Stafford loans that Joe & Martha Taxpayer are ponying up so that hordes of TT lemmings can attend NYLS, Pace, Cooley and the other TTT's? How is this money ever getting paid back when there are no jobs (even doc review is being outsourced and automated)? Making even the minimum payments with the 35 K small firms are paying (provided you can even find one of these shit-jobs) is impossible.
The law school scam in nothing more than the transfer of tax dollars from the public to ultra-wealthy dean and admins.
Is NYLS as bad as Pace or Cooley?
I thought it was a bit better. Their dean is supposed to be good at getting people big firm placements and a real visionary.
Thank you for moderating the site. The racism was distracting.
While I agree about lawyers and the system, we are just part of a larger trend of white collar workers destroyed in the way that NAFTA and other Democratic/Republican policies have destroyed the blue collar industries. If you want to know why there are no enough jobs for lawyer, the problem is that we have a declining economy in which no one can afford us.
This is creating a downward pressure. When you realize that this last decade produced no new jobs, it is not hard to see why no one needs lawyers. So, really blue collar workers were the canary in the coal mine that should have warned white collar jobs seekers that we were next. We are a byproduct of the deeper problems with neo-liberal economic policy making.
Here's a great short film that sums up the crux of the problem.
"Neoliberalism As Water Balloon"
http://www.vimeo.com/6803752
Key take away: The balloon is bursting.
My point is- if Frontline, really wants to dig into what's happening in America, they need to cover the death of white collar jobs as the next wave of decline since our manufacturing sector is already dead.
I am glad Tom the temp ended this racist crap. And, I hate all groups including my own ethnic background.
Excellent idea on the Frontline & on FINALLY getting rid of the racist posts on here. Kudos!
thank you for monitoring the comments. it was hard to read at times.
Does anyone have any news about the goings on at 65 Broadway?
Kudos to you for deciding to moderate the race-based comments.
I'm not sure Frontline would do something as specific as law school itself, but it might be inclined to do something about schools in general. Undergrad institutions that pump out majors in philosophy and French literature are just as useless as a TTT law degree, if not moreso. If Frontline is an hour long show, they could probably devote about 15 minutes to law school in particular and the rest of the show about other academic disciplines.
Here's to hoping for a much improved job market in 2010.
Thank you L4L...this blog once served a good purpose, and in recent months had been taken over by a few idiots.
There can be a real discussion in regards to the quality of work issues that arise with foriegn LLM's being brought on document review projects and producing sub-standard work due to language limitations. But far too many people on this board made that issue a racial one, and not a Legal/ABA issue.
I look forward to better discourse around here...rally the troops.
Re Education
One aspect of our economic circumstances, outside of the death of white collar jobs, is that education over the last 3 decades has become a commodity.
This means that it is not seen as a way to educate society or a public good. It is BiG BUSINESS. So, cost are passed on to students. This is why the arguments over loans are misplaced. Loans are a symptom of a wider problem about how we have turned education into this expensive, over priced commodity.
This follows from neo-liberalism, which treats all activities in society, as economic activities rather than assigning other values to them. For example, if we truly prized education it would be cheap. Since we don't really prize education, it is expensive. This may seem counter intuitive to the economic types, but it is an accurate reflection of how things like the GI Bill and low cost community college systems once treated education. Now, even community college is expensive.
On a side note, commoditization is another reason behind our dying "legal profession." You can not turn can not a profession into a commodity since the idea of being a professional implies there is something unique about your skills that is irreplaceable and that no one else can provide.
The ABA and legal industry are seeking, therefore, to turn us into commodities. This is why they are opening up the boarders to foreign lawyers who lack training. It is directly out of the rule book found in other industries relying on specialized training. Open up the borders to drive down the cost of labor. Neo-liberal economic policy making 101.
The interesting thing is that this will eventually burn the heads of large law firms since this sort of process eventually kills the entire system, rather than just the lower parts of the system. You start to eat your own.
Pity - Tom the Temp is getting serious with his blog.
His right, but still a shame.
Can we still talk about Lisa and her need for braces?
Agree on the new moderation policy.
Some of the most recent comments are spot on (e.g. 3:12 and 9:11). How did we get to this point, as a profession? What should be done, and what can be done, to reverse the tide?
I also read ATL and Bitter Lawyer. On Dec 28, a BigLaw parter posted that he was dissatisfied that his income had shrunk to $910,000.
So, we have a sliver of jerks at the top making a million bucks, (and feeling put out about it, no less)and a mass of younger attorneys unable to pay their school loans scrambling to get doc review jobs. Law school tuition has risen through the roof.
Do you ever get the feeling that a very small few are making out like bandits, and the rest are being treated as suckers?
To quote Jonny Rotten: Ever get the feeling you've been cheated? (Man, the fucker was a prophet...)
FINALLY, the administrator of this site has committed to eliminating the racist, anti-semitic, gender whining and bating blather that has become the mantra. The irony is that it is a site upon which "lawyers" scribe......no wonder attorneys have a bad rap...no wonder most thinking attorneys feel that the bottom 100 law schools should be closed.....and this is what is being let into law schools? Thank you.
"How did we get to this point, as a profession? What should be done, and what can be done, to reverse the tide?"
It requires systemic reforms that are larger than the legal industry. It requires a sea change in mindset. One telling example of how Americans think versus Europeans is that of French leader Sarkozy.
Sarkozy is a conservative, but he is a European style rather than American conservative. Like with Labour in the UK, he recently placed a cap on bankers. He did this as a conservative.
Can you imagine that happening in the U.S. In the U.S., the so called liberal party is following the same policies that got Wall Street into the financial mess that lead to the melt down.
However, the more important point is that no one is doing a damn thing about it. We are all too complacent, and certain of our superiority as a country.
How many Americans think we are the best in education or health care?
When you look at lawyers, that's why they keep telling people to go. It is this unrealistic assessment of where we are as a country that continues to make real reform impossible. If, and until, you have a change in attitudes, I don't see American getting better. I think it will just continue on its slow decline.
The legal industry is only a part of a bigger mess. My advice is to figure out ways to navigate through this mess without expecting the society to improve.
"I also read ATL and Bitter Lawyer. On Dec 28, a BigLaw parter posted that he was dissatisfied that his income had shrunk to $910,000."
Yes, this is not surprising. With entrenched classes comes the sense by the money classes that they are entitled.
I don't have a problem with him making money. I do have a problem with the sense of entitlement that he deserves to make money, but heaven forbid we have a basic safety net. Then that's just a hand out.
"Do you ever get the feeling that a very small few are making out like bandits, and the rest are being treated as suckers?"
Yes, but, that's not surprising. "Making out like bandits" is a feature rather than a defect of the system of economic policy making in the U.S. The trick of this sort of capitalism (there are other types) as my professor used to say (a conservative) is that it is a spoke in the wheel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoke-hub_distribution_paradigm
The system is complicated, but the thesis of the system is not: Drain all resources so that they move towards a central figure-- the wealthy. All resources move in that direction regardless of the form it takes.
Lawyers are the latest example, but just an example. Once you realize the point is resource redistribution to the wealthy (reverse Socialism) then you get why things are in steady decline. The point is to squeeze you until there is nothing left.
The policies we have been moving toward over the last 30 years more closely resemble bit by bit those of third world banana republics or 19th century America rather than advanced social democracies of the 21st century.
For all of you milennial-tards currently racking up $150k+ in debt at your festering toilet TTT, here is some further bad news. Outsourcing of American Legal work has gone mainstream, taking with it thousands of the good entry level jobs that older generations of lawyers used to get a start (think research, doc review).
Frost + Sullivan of all companies has awarded an Indian shyster outfit an award for their excellence in 2009!
http://www.autonewsinsider.com/mindcrest-receives-frost-sullivan-2009-global-core-legal-services-excellence-in-outsourcing-award
Indian outsourced sweatshops just ooze with prestige.
It's not about getting people to like lawyers, they can continue to hate them. It's about shining a light on how law schools misrepresent their placements, charge way too much for a lack of critical skills training, and cannot/will not help the bottom 85% find jobs (and this is when the economy was WAY better).
NO ONE CARES ABOUT LAWYERS BECAUSE:
Big law partners are petty, greedy, blood sucking shysters.
Small law lawyers are petty, greedy, blood sucking shysters.
Unemployed lawyers are failed petty, greedy, blood sucking shysters.
Law students are wannabe petty, greedy, blood sucking shysters.
Anyone who has dealt with lawyers, including other lawyers, has gotten screwed over.
Bring it on! I'd love to be on Frontline!
Any press is good press, as goes the saying. In this case, it would be all positive for me, since a) no one sympathizes with lawyers and they all want us to drop dead; b) I'm not breaking any laws by serving concurrently as Dean of NYLS and Chairman of Access Group; I'm actually doing what's encouraged by the US economic system: I'm feeding on those lower on the food chain, much like a blue whale with plankton. (And since I'm eating well, I'm almost the size of a blue whale....); and c) I can use the Frontline exposure to leverage my 'sleeves-rolled-up, Everyman' persona to sell the new NYLS building to the next wave of lemmings, who fanatsize that NYLS graduates' lives are just like the glamorous lives they see in legal movies and TV shows.
Win win for The Deanman!
Do you really think anyone will show
Empathy towards a bunch of lawyers?
No way. The fact that we are all
Tired, unemployed, unemployable, no
Alleviation of our pain in sight.
Laughter is all we will get from the
Public at large. L4L is right, we're
Losers. It's not headline grabbing
And people just won't care.
Nobody like lawyers.
Why does the same person keep posting about being empathetic to lawyers.
Do you think economic issues are about empathy or like watching American Idol for who you want to pick?
An open blog is always better than a censored one.
The racist comments against religious groups was very objectionable, but I wouldn't want it censored.
There will always be bias. I.e. India and LPO's get attacked all the time, but Nigerians taking American jobs are off limits.
This is PC and stupid.
It won't change the fact that the Nigerians are deeply resented and that many people think they should not be admitted or allowed to work here.
This is no different than EVERY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD which restricts the legal profession to their own nationals.
awww man..this site was so much better w/ all the crazies/profanity/hate..bring that back Tom...no one wants to read about unemployed temps who shouldn't have gone to law school anyways..save yourself the trouble, if you can't get into a 1st tier don't go!! be a cashier @ Rite Aid..least you get a discount..holla!!
MODERATOR'S REPLY to 1:33:
If you feel that Nigerians and other foreign LLM holders should not be permitted to take the NYS bar, then take that issue up with the state bar itself instead of posting redudant, race-flaming, inflammatory comments on this blog.
The comments re: Nigerians posted on here were and are unfair, repulsive, and ignorant. They serve no purpose and hijack worthwhile discussions, as do the endless LISA NEEDS BRACES crowd and other juvenille spammers.
Many Nigerians have in fact have attended US law schools and have American JDs (I can think of three from recent projects that were NYLS/Brooklyn JD grads), and lest we forget those LLM programs aren't exactly cheap either. And of course they've all also had to endure the hazing ritual of the NY Bar as well as paying annual dues, CLE's, and other legal industry shakedowns.
There is an obvious difference between "being PC" and allowing KKK-style hate-mongering and pointless screeds against Nigerians to hijack the entire comments section. If you can't see that, then just go away.
I heard that LexPollution is recruiting for MoFo, the law firm whose name aptly stands for "motherfucker".
Slave hours of 60 hours a week for the toilet pay of $30 flat per hour.
From now on, only degrading remarks about WHITE CHRISTIAN MALES will be allowed, as they are acceptable in American society.
Thank you,
Tom
L4L, you should remove the Moderator Approval setting immediately. If you're concerned about the content of posts, let them be posted, then delete them afterwards if they're idiotic.
You're incorrect to pre-censor posts; it is against the spirit of this blog. Tom doesn't pre-censor; rather, he deletes (most) silly posts after they've been posted.
This isn't your blog; you're just filling in while Tom is away. Run your own blog your way, and mind the shop here without imposing your own arbitrary rules where they don't belong.
Seriously, the classism, exculsivity, and rampant nepotism of the Elite Groups mentioned above makes me wonder why they even bothered to allow out-groups (those not of their group) to attend law school and get licensed.
Oh yeah, wait a minute. I forgot about the marriage between the student loan companies and the educational institutions, AKA "The Education-Industrial Complex," as perfectly exemplified by Deanman Massa-sar. Someone needs to fund it, and rich, Elite WASPs and rich, Elite Jews don't need student loans.
4:36 - The urinal divider is still down and what's-his-face keeps trying to 'cross the streams'.
The Six Stages of a Doc Review Project
1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic
4. The Search for the Guilty
5. The Punishment of the Innocent
6. Praise and Honor to Non-Participants
Lol,big deal
Gary Troy
Vice-President
The Aldan Troy Group
212-867-4621
gtroy@aldantroygroup.com
www.aldantroygroup.com
___________________________
From: _____________
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 11:20 PM
To: tjeter@aldantroygroup.com
Cc: Gary Troy
Subject: Fwd: FW: Fraudulent job listings - _________ - NYSDOL E-Mail
"labor.sm.does.comments" wrote:
Subject: FW: Fraudulent job listings - ________- NYSDOL E-Mail
Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 08:39:43 -0400
From: "labor.sm.does.comments"
To: ________________________
CC: "labor.sm.ls.ask"
Thank you for your recent e-mail to the New York State Department of Labor. I have forwarded your e-mail to the Division of Labor Standards for assistance in this matter.
From: Crowell, Lynne M (LABOR) On Behalf Of labor.sm.NYSDOL
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 4:05 PM
To: labor.sm.does.comments
Subject: FW: Fraudulent job listings
From: _________
Sent: Wednesday, August 29, 2007 1:06 AM
To: labor.sm.NYSDOL
Subject: Fraudulent job listings
I'd like to make a complaint about Aldan Troy employment agency posting fraudulent job listings such as the one below:
http://jobview.monster.com/getjob.asp?JobID=61125298
I'm a lawyer who is looking for work, both full-time and temporary.
I registered with Aldan Troy. I stopped by last week and they said they never have word processing jobs available; yet they continuously advertise them.
I believe this constitutes fraud. Aldan Troy should be investigated.
Also, Yorkson Legal also posts phony jobs.
Regards,
___________
Brooklyn Law School's career staitstic are fraudulent
Do not believe Brooklyn Law School's career statistics. They are fraudulent.
L4L can you please monitor this board more often. Hopefully the racists you are preventing from posting will use the proper white supremist blogs to post there agenda on.
I did my submission. I bet Frontline will be too cowardly to cover it though.
lol@ the racists whining about being moderated. There's no room for that in any civil discourse, make your own blog if you want to post that crap.
Tom should have moderated the comments a long time ago but he probably did not have the time.
"Now" with David Brancaccio might be more sympathetic than Frontline. I did see a story about a woman who was battling Sallie Mae because she got a master's degree in social work. I think that social work, like law and library science, are just some of those professions that you wonder, "why in God's name do you need a useless bachelor's degree to get into these programs since the actual work itself isn't that hard?"
Yes, why are we forcing people to go into thousands of dollars of debt so they can walk before a court and say, "hey, judge, don't revoke his probation. He's got a kid at home that he's supporting!"? Heck, I cynically believe that they went to the degree mill standard of wasting away in school because legal secretaries were walking in and taking the bar. Forcing people to go to law school necessarily limits the number of people who can practice...and although many people say that this is a good thing that we should keep the profession small, imagine living in a world where you make $25 as a temp attorney, but you get to feed yourself because you aren't paying off $100k in debt?
I went to paralegal school at a community college before I went to law school. I gained nearly the same schooling in property, evidence, family law, and so forth that I did in law school for 1/20th of the price. It was taught by practicing attorneys who did about as an effective job as a professor from an Ivy league school and there were no "back when I was at Yale" and "back when I was hanging out with Scalia" stories to keep you riveted. It's not like law school really teaches you anything really meaty like "how to draft a 1200 page contract" which would make it worth the extra expense in making you feel like you are hanging with the intellectual elite. Instead, half of it is Judge Judy law involving people painting your house without your permission and whether you knew about it and didn't try to stop them. All you really need after your schooling is complete is for someone to show you where to file things in a court and how to haggle with the prosecutor, which can be done through a legal clinic or extended internship.
Congrats on the decision to delete the racist comments.
"All racist/anti-Nigerian/anti-Semitic comments will be deleted, so don't waste your time. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves."
I can't imagine why anyone would make crass generalizations about Nigerians. In exchange for my bank account info, their Minister of Finance will be sending me 39 million dollars in the next few days.
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