Mississippi Litigation Review & Commentary : Mississippi Personal Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Phillip W. Thomas Law Firm : MS Litigation Review & Commentary

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Should law schools change their curriculum? That was the focus of a New York Times editorial on Friday. The editorial states:

Instead of a curriculum taught largely through professors’ grilling of students about appellate cases, some schools are offering more apprentice-style learning in legal clinics and more courses that train students for their multiple future roles as advocates and counselors, negotiators and deal-shapers, and problem-solvers.

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In American law schools, the choice is not between teaching legal theory or practice; the task is to teach useful legal ideas and skills in more effective ways. The case method has been the foundation of legal education for 140 years. Its premise was that students would learn legal reasoning by studying appellate rulings. That approach treated law as a form of science and as a source of truth.

That vision was dated by the 1920s. It was a relic by the 1960s. Law is now regarded as a means rather than an end, a tool for solving problems. In reforming themselves, law schools have the chance to help reinvigorate the legal profession and rebuild public confidence in what lawyers can provide.

My Take:

I agree that the law school teaching method is dated and wastes a lot of time. I'm all for updating the curriculum to place more emphasis on topics that will actually help students practice law. There is a catch, however, that editorials like this miss.

Although law schools don't do much to train students to practice law, they do a lot to help students pass the bar exam. Depending on their practice area, students may not need courses on property, UCC and bankruptcy. But substantive courses like that come in handy when it's time to study for and take the bar exam. Courses in negotiating, software coding and deal-shaping? Not so much.

So before schools and students jump whole-hog into revamping the curriculum, they need to keep in mind that there is a bar exam to take—and pass—before students can actually start practicing law.  

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The Director of the University of Mississippi Law Schools Career Service Director has garnered national attention--and not in a good way. The hugely popular Above the Law blog reported this week on the director sending an email to students taking the position that the career services office is not in the business of finding students jobs. The email states in part:

“A little birdie” stopped by my office after I sent the last e-mail and informed me that there was some type of agreement among several of the 2L’s and 3L’s to refuse to supply this information in some form of protest against Career Services not “doing our job” — apparently misconstrued as “finding people jobs.”

My first reaction upon reading this was: My God! Joyce Whittington would never say that. She must no longer be the Career Services Director. Turns out I was right.

The law schools website lists the current Career Services Director as Kristin Flierl. Joyce Whittington was the director for over 25 years. I had heard that Joyce was going to retire, but I wasn't sure when.

It didn't take long to find a 2003 UM Lawyer article about Joyce in which she took the exact opposite position of Ms. Flierl on what her job was:

I think one of the most stressful parts of this job is that it’s never done—a class may graduate, but not everyone in the class has a job. So I’m still working with those kids, sometimes for months, to help them find jobs. And there’s always a 2L or a lL who needs a summer job. Then there are the alums who have Job A but seek Job B, or quit Job A before they have Job B.

For a person who likes to have things “finished,” it took me a while to realize that I’m never going to be finished, that there’s always another student or another alum who needs something. But that’s the nature of the job. I consider this office to be truly service-oriented and client-based, with my kids and my alums being the clients.

So the law school has gone from having a career services director who was a beloved and award-winning figure who viewed her work as never done; to a patronizing impostor who views her work has never starting? Nice!!!

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A couple of weeks ago Above the Law had this story about the growing list of lawsuits against law schools for allegedly misrepresenting employment rates to potential students. Lawsuits are filed or planned against over 15 law schools nationwide.

The plaintiffs' lawyers in many of these cases predict that there will be suits filed against all law schools within the next year:

Strauss and Anziska held a media conference call this afternoon, with Strauss stating that he believed “almost every law school in the country will be sued by the end of 2012&Prime because the “problem isn’t going away, and the legal academy isn’t owning up to it.” Strauss and Anziska noted multiple times that they would not sue a school unless they had three plaintiffs.

Anziska noted that prior to the Alaburda v. TJSL suit, law schools reported inaccurate employment data with “Madoff-like consistency.” Strauss and Anziska are challenging the post-graduate employment data of these 15 additional law schools because they are in “markets that are saturated with lawyers, making the statistics implausible.”

Dean Wormer must be quaking in his boots.

And now the U.S. Senate is getting involved.

It will be interesting to see if law school litigation makes it to Mississippi. It will be more difficult here than in some states with no state court Rule 23 and no mass joinder allowed. If cases are filed, one would expect Miss. College to be sued before Ole Miss because it is a private school that is more expensive.

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Yesterday's Wall Street Journal contained this article about law schools changing course offerings in an effort to help students get jobs after graduating.

The article states:

Law schools are responding by infusing a practical focus into their curricula that, in many cases, have not changed in decades. So far, the transformations are most visible among so-called lower-tier law schools, but a few elite players are also starting to make adjustments.

Washington and Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Virginia, overhauled its third year curriculum in 2009 by swapping out traditional lectures for case-based courses.

New York Law School hired 15 new faculty members over the last two years to teach skills in negotiation, counseling, interviewing and fact investigation.

Professors at Indiana’s Maurer School of Law started teaching project management as well as so-called emotional intelligence.

And last year, Harvard launched a new problem-solving class for first years, while Stanford is considering making a full-time clinical course a graduation requirement.

What I found most interesting was this chart that accompanied the article:

That's a scary trend if you are in law school or thinking about going to law school. If that trend continues, law schools will need to start offering courses on how to live under a bridge.

One other thing. I know that many law students think that good old Uncle Bubba or whoever can pull some strings and get them a job at Butler Snow or somewhere similar. He can't—unless you finish in the top 3 in your class and would have gotten the job anyway. 

Maybe things worked like that 50 years ago. But it didn't work like that 19 years ago when I graduated from law school. It didn't work like that 9 years ago when I left Baker Donelson. And it doesn't work like that now. You will sink or swim on your own record. So study hard. 

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When I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago I could not locate a recently filed lawsuit against a law school based on deceptive marketing of graduates' job prospects. But last week the ABA Journal reported on a case filed by a former student against the Thomas Jefferson School of Law.

Here is a link to the Class Action Complaint in Aladruda v. Thomas Jefferson School of Law, courtesy of Legal Ethics Forum.

The Complaint pleads causes of action that will be familiar to lawyers with experience in deceptive sales practices cases. Claims include common law based actions for fraud and negligent misrepresentation.

The plaintiff amassed $150,000 in student loan debt. She claims that she was misled by the school's use of statistics that 80% of law school grads find jobs. Apparently, delivering pizza does count as a job in those statistics.

My Take:

I doubt that law schools are laughing. I believe that law schools do have exposure in these types of cases. If you intentionally use misleading statistics to induce someone to spend six figures attending your law school, then you may have exposure to fraud-related claims.

Keep in mind that many law school applicants are not sophisticated when it comes to recognizing deceptive marketing. A twenty-two year old college senior can be naive and gullible. Are law schools taking advantage of this? Probably.

The amount of the economic damages at stake in these cases suggests that there could be other similar cases filed. If one law school settled, it could open a floodgate of litigation against other law schools. And they wouldn't have to be class actions. A lawyer could make a go of it in individual cases if she represented many students with a lot of debt.

Update:

The Above the Law Blog has good coverage of the lawsuit here.

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Saturday's Clarion-Ledger had this article about all the law school graduates with no jobs. MC Law Dean Jim Rosenblatt had this circumspect quote in the article:

“This economy makes for a tougher job market, but our students work very hard," MC Law Dean Jim Rosenblatt said.

The article quotes statistics that I'd bet money are misleading:

According to the National Conference of Bar Examiners, about 80 percent of the students will pass the bar exam on the first try, and nearly 90 percent of students from each school had jobs within nine months of graduation in 2009 - the most recent figures available.

It's my understanding that some of Dean Rosenblatt's recent graduates are working very hard with jobs…..delivering pizzas. Last time I checked, you didn't need a law degree to get a job at Domino's. 

Does that 90% employed figure count jobs that graduates take because they can't find a job using their law degree? Does it count service industry jobs that do not even require a college degree? I'm betting yes.   

Let's be honest. Law schools are big business and represent profit centers for their universities. How much does a year of law school cost at MC? $50,000? So is it in a law school's interest to tell applicants that the school will take you money and spit you out in three years without a job? No, it's not.   

And for what? From what I hear, it's unlikely that a graduate of a Mississippi law school will get a real legal industry job. And the notion that going into $150,000 in debt for a law degree that you are not going to use is a joke. 

How about hanging up your shingle after law school? Two words: good luck. I'm not saying that it can't be done. But it often ends badly—even for lawyers with years of experience. And when its over, they have even more debt.    

Meanwhile, law school classes are getting bigger. And the money keeps rolling in for the universities.

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This recent New York Times article provides a lengthy analysis of the border-line scam of law school. Law students are going into debt to the tune of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars only to find out that there are no jobs for lawyers in this economy.

Along the way the article has some great lines:

“Avoid this overpriced sewer pit as if your life depended on it,” writes the anonymous author of the blog Third Tier Reality — a reference to the second-to-bottom tier of the U.S. News rankings — in a typically scatological review. “Unless, of course, you think that you will be better off with $110k-$190k in NON-DISCHARGEABLE debt for a degree that qualifies you to wait tables at the Battery Park Bar and Lounge.”

Apparently, there is no shortage of 22-year-olds who think that law school is the perfect place to wait out a lousy economy and the gasoline that fuels this system — federally backed student loans — is still widely available.

And all those losers can remain cash-poor for a long time. “I think the student loans that kids leave law school with are more scandalous than payday loans,” says Andrew Morriss, a law professor at the University of Alabama.

This gets to what might be the ultimate ugly truth about law school: plenty of those who borrow, study and glad-hand their way into the gated community of Big Law are miserable soon after they move in. The billable-hour business model pins them to their desks and devours their free time.

Hence the cliché: law school is a pie-eating contest where the first prize is more pie.

“This idea of exceptionalism — I don’t know if it’s a thing with millennials, or what,” she says, referring to the generation now in its 20s. “Even if you tell them the bottom has fallen out of the legal market, they’re all convinced that none of the bad stuff will happen to them. It’s a serious, life-altering decision, going to law school, and you’re dealing with a lot of naïve students who have never had jobs, never paid real bills.”

The bottom line is that taking out a loan to go to law school is a losing bet. It's like betting the hard ways at the craps table. There might be a big pay-off if you hit. But the odds are that you won't. Smart money stays away from losing bets.

Law school might make sense for students who will get a full scholarship or who do not have to go into debt to attend. For everyone else, it is probably a mistake.

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This article on the ABA Journal News website discusses the issue of law schools failing to disclose the dim job prospects to students. The article states:

While those at the very top of the starting salary scale might earn $160,000, the median among all lawyers is $60,000. So, for those in the middle of the pack, "if you have debts over $100,000, some reaching $150,000, it will be very difficult to pay that debt," he says.

David N. Yellen, dean of Loyola University Chicago School of Law and chair of the ABA subcommittee that considers what consumer information law schools should be required to report, tells the Law Bulletin that law schools need to be more transparent about job prospects.

"I believe the time has come to mandate that law schools publicly disclose more information about job outcomes," Yellen is quoted saying.

If $60,000 is the nationwide median salary for lawyers, then the median in Mississippi has to be lower. And job prospects for lawyers are at an all time low. 

Hardly a week goes by that I don't hear a rumor about layoffs at a big or medium size firm, get a phone call about a lawyer looking for work or hear a story about a former law grad delivering pizzas. Just yesterday I was looking up a lawyer on a Jackson based firm's web site. I was shocked to see how much smaller the firm was than 5–10 years ago. The firm has shrunk down to the point where most of the lawyers were at the firm 15 years ago.

I'm starting to get the feeling that many Mississippi lawyers who graduated from law school in the late 90's and early 2000's during the mass joinder litigation boom have disappeared.  I have no idea where all the lawyers who were working in Mississippi litigation ten years ago—but aren't now—went to.

Meanwhile, I heard recently that the Mississippi College Law School just increased the size of its first year class. They should be shrinking their classes instead of growing them. MC Law School is not alone on this issue. But law schools are such profit centers for schools that they will not do the right thing on this issue.

For many people, starting law school in this legal economy is a sucker bet. I can understand it for people who really want to be a lawyer and are willing to suffer to make it happen. But that applies to what? 10% of a first year class at the most? Everyone else is there because they are smart enough to get in and don't have a better idea for what to do after college.

People might be better off going to a trade school after college. If you learn a trade, are good at it and can succesfully run a business, you probably have better income prospects than a lawyer right now. Not to mention the fact that many lawyers hate practicing law.  

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The Legal Marketing Blog commented today on Tuesday's ABA Journal online article reporting that corporate legal departments cut spending for the first time in 10 years. This is not news to Mississippi attorneys, who have been struggling with a recession in the legal industry for approximately six years.

LMB states:

What it all means is that law firms are going to have to get real smart, real fast when it comes to project management. With a reduction in spending by legal departments, two things are going to happen:

1. Smaller and mid-size firms will pick up more work that normally was done by larger firms, simply because they can do it cheaper and just as effectively in most cases; and
2. Larger firms are going to be adopting project management religion very quickly, so that they can do the work more efficiently and effectively on less dollars, if there is any hope of maintaining their standard of living.

That creates important marketing and business development opportunities for firms that understand the ramifications of lower legal spending levels.

If what has happened in Mississippi is any indication, it also means fewer jobs for lawyers and their support staff and less pay for those with jobs. Support staff are often ignored when this topic comes up, but the legal recession affects the families of a lot of support staff who are not lawyers.

How law schools can continue to increase class sizes in this climate is beyond me. The notion that a law degree has value independent of a legal career may be correct. But the statement in a vacuum is misleading. An empty aluminum can on the side of the road has value. But you shouldn't go tens of thousands of dollars (or more) into debt to acquire that value.   

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With the legal job market in shambles, there is a growing number of blogs devoted to criticizing law schools for not doing more to educate potential students about the difficulties in finding a job after law school. Examples include:

Third Tier Reality– My goal is to inform potential law school students and applicants of the ugly realities of attending law school. DO NOT ATTEND UNLESS: (1) YOU GET INTO A TOP 8 LAW SCHOOL; (2) YOU GET A FULL-TUITION SCHOLARSHIP TO ATTEND; (3) YOU HAVE EMPLOYMENT AS AN ATTORNEY SECURED THROUGH A RELATIVE OR CLOSE FRIEND; OR (4) YOU ARE FULLY AWARE BEFOREHAND THAT YOUR HUGE INVESTMENT IN TIME, ENERGY, AND MONEY DOES NOT, IN ANY WAY, GUARANTEE A JOB AS AN ATTORNEY OR IN THE LEGAL INDUSTRY.

Exposing the Law School Scam– This blog is written by a coalition of lawyers dedicated to exposing the "law school scam." In particular, we are interested in exposing the dramatic oversupply of lawyers, and how that oversupply has been caused by bogus employment and income/salary statistics used by most law schools to induce applicants to apply to law school. Also, we are concerned with how the legal establishment is complicit in this "law school scam."

Esq. Never– One law school graduate's attempt to find a fulfilling career in spite of his legal education.

These blogs also provide links to other blogs devoted to slamming law schools and the legal profession.

Mississippi’s law schools need to educate applicants about the realities of the difficult job market. My non-scientific polling of current law students indicates that law schools do not warn students about the weak job market until after students are enrolled and are finding it difficult to find clerkships and permanent jobs. Of course, by that point the train has left the station. 

I agree with the comments by William Henderson, a professor at the Indiana University School of Law. Harrison states that “all [students] believe they are going to be in the top 10% of their class, and they have this vision of the profession that doesn’t exist. And law schools don’t try to dispel those myths to potential applicants.”

The realities are different. Everyone who gets into law school is intelligent—at least on some level. [I concede that many are idiots on other levels, but that is a discussion for another day.] But over 90% of those who start law school will not finish in the top 10% of their class. The reason that it’s over 90% is that people will quit along the way. For instance, if you start with a class of 200 and 50 quit before graduation, there are 15 people who finish in the top 10%—not 20.

A handful of students starting Mississippi law schools will get a job at a big firm with a starting salary north of $80,000. And some people who don’t measure happiness by the amount of their salary consider the big-firm grads the losers in the class, due to the difficulties in having a balanced happy life in big law.  Other grads will be scrambling for jobs making less—sometimes far less. Often these individuals end up bitter because they are not making more money, which means that they are unhappy and do a bad job at work.

At the end of the day, most legal industry jobs end up like most jobs. As in other industries, the profession is filled with people who are unhappy and feel like they are underpaid.  But that is not what people expect to happen when they decide to go to law school.