Inside the Law School Scam Comes to a Close

When its door first opened, law professors were outraged. Both because of what it said, that law schools were indeed running a scam, and because of who said it, an anonymous lawprof. Or at least someone who certainly appeared to be a lawprof. The lawprof soon came out, and Paul Campos became an instant pariah.

When it first appeared, it was somewhat underwhelming from the standpoint of its revelations, despite the outrage it cause in academic circles, but it offered something that had never before existed: an insider validating the otherwise insane and childish rantings of the scambloggers.

Keep an eye on Inside the Law School Scam, as there may be revelations yet. And even if not, his recognition of the problems that compel discussion and redress may prove to be the start of a beautiful solution. As he offers in his post discussing Elena Kagan (who never stepped foot in a courtroom until she was appointed Solicitor General):

Someone should inscribe the phrase Fake It Till You Make It (in classical Latin naturally) on the façade of Harvard’s fancy new law building – and on that of every law school in America.

That explains an awful lot about the state of the law, and may be the most revealing, and important, thing exposed.

The blog never really provided much by way of inside revelations, as much as provide a home for a great many miserable law students and new lawyers to not only vent, but believe that someone outside their circumstances shared their anger. On the other hand, Campos never shied from taking his fellow lawprofs to task for their insipid attempts to rationalize their fabulous life and expose the phoniness of their law porn.

It struck me, recently in fact, that whenever I stopped by there and took a look that it was suffering the fate of all one-trick ponies, sounding pretty much like the same record being played over and over.  I have that sense here sometimes as well.  There were always tons of comments, but almost nothing new or thoughtful. I wondered how much longer it could go on.  I got an answer pretty quickly.

19 months and 499 posts later, it turns out that the core message of this blog – that legal academia is operating on the basis of an unsustainable economic model, which requires most law students to borrow more money to get law degrees than it makes sense for them to borrow, given their career prospects, and that for many years law schools worked hard, wittingly or unwittingly, to hide this increasingly inconvenient truth from both themselves and their potential matriculants – has evolved from a horrible heresy to something close to conventional wisdom.

While Campos is only one of a number of lawprofs who put their names and reputations on the line to break ranks with his brethren, he did something others didn't. He spoke out loud and clear. He responded in kind to the silly defenses offered by those who argued for the status quo, or pooh-poohed the problems suffered by young lawyers.  While others sought to challenge the status quo, but do so in a way that wouldn't reflect too poorly on them or devolve to a tone that academics thought inappropriate, Campos said things that hurt feelings and made eyes roll.

In a way, he was the missing link between the scambloggers and the academy.  After coming out and taking his hits, other law professors were empowered to join in the voices questioning what law schools were doing to students. Without Campos, I wonder whether they would have been so bold.

In less than 2 years, the idea promoted by Campos, and Bill Henderson and Brian Tamanaha, has gone very much mainstream.  It's not a done deal by any stretch, and there are no shortage of lawprofs who hold onto their dreams of the good old days still. But it is now a legitimate discussion, with strong voices in the academy trying to deal with some of the problems. 

Sadly, practicing lawyers remains pretty much on the sidelines, when the problem is theirs as well. But before Campos signed off, he posted a letter sent to him from a lawyer who has now joined the disappeared.

Professor Campos:

I have a feeling you get a lot of e-mail messages like this, and you probably do not have time to respond to them all, but I thought I would give it a shot. I will try to give you an abbreviated version.

I graduated from [elite university] with a B.A. in [social science major] in 1994. I was on scholarship, so I managed to graduate with no debt.

After my clerkship, I went into private practice. I have taken more than 200 depositions, argued motions in court more than 100 times, conducted several multi-day trials, propounded and answered more discovery than I care to think about, and drafted countless briefs, motions, and pleadings...

I was laid off in late 2010, and I have been out of work ever since. There were no accusations of misconduct, no complaints about my work. The law firm was downsizing, and that was that.

I’m 41 years old, I’ve been out of law school for 13 years, and I do not have a book of business, so evidently, my career as a lawyer is over. I have a wife and 2 kids who need me to work, but I don’t know how to do anything other than practice law.

Since I was laid off, I have floundered around, applying for jobs, representing a few clients as a solo practitioner (not that that has been lucrative – think very low five figures per year), and trying to figure out “What happens to all of the lawyers?” 

I am a real, live lawyer with a J.D., a license, and years of experience. But no one will pay me to practice law anymore, and I don’t know how to do anything else. Yes, of course, big changes are coming to law schools and the legal profession, many reforms need to be implemented, and prospective law students need to be warned. It’s not that I am not interested in those things, but I have more immediate problems to solve. I have 2 kids, a mortgage, and 25 more years to work – I can’t waste time being angry at my alma mater, wallowing in my sadness, or pontificating about law schools and my profession. I need to find a way to earn some money SOON. Do you have any suggestions for someone like me?

The email is worth reading in its entirety. Much as we talk about how any person can be accused of a crime, any lawyer can find himself in this situation, or some variation of it.  And this person turned to Paul Campos for help. Not me. Not you. Not the scambloggers. Not the other lawprofs. He turned to Campos.

This is why the issues should matter to all of us. This is why Paul Campos matters. Best of luck, professor.




© 2012 Simple Justice NY LLC. This feed is for personal, non-commercial & Newstex use only. The use of this feed on any other website is a copyright violation. If this feed is not via RSS reader or Newstex, it infringes the copyright.

Source: http://blog.simplejustice.us/2013/03/01/inside-the-law-school-scam-comes-to-a-close.aspx?ref=rss

local lawyer local solicitors mold attorney need a lawyer patent lawyer