Shameless self-promotion over at our Law School Survival Manual blog.

Here.

A nice shout-out in a book review.

See here.  Thanks, Sue Liemer!

Am I a bit OCD about writing? Why, yes. Yes, I am.

Proof?  My latest proofreading affidavit for my students (here).

Yet more on Larry Mitchell's sunny op-ed on why law school is a good idea.

On another blog (Law School Survival Manual), I've spent a bit of time ruminating over just what in Larry Mitchell's op-ed rubbed me the wrong way.  (See here.)  Other folks are saying the same thing, often in better ways (take a gander at the updates to my post for two such examples, and to the postings on Inside the Law School Scam (starting here). 

I guess what frustrates me most is the sense that decanal groupthink is trying to wish away a lot of the problems that face legal education.  There were many, many kudos to the Mitchell op-ed on one of the deans' listservs.  If those kudos had been from the very top law schools, I'd have understood.  Law degrees from Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and other such schools are likely to be exceptionally good investments.  (After all, I benefit greatly from my degree from Stanford.*)

But when good, but not elite, schools are making their case for law school being a good investment, they can't just trot out the "we train you to think!" and "law is a lifetime career!" arguments.  I don't think that the first of those arguments applies just to law schools (pretty much any good education will train someone to think well).  And I don't think that the "law is a lifetime career" theory works when a law graduate can't get a first law job within a reasonable time.  The "you can use a law degree in other careers" argument is true, of course, but just because someone can use a legal education in other fields doesn't mean that spending six figures to get that degree is always a good idea.

I'm as proud of legal education as every other law dean is,** but I want students to enter law school with their eyes open.  (I also want law schools to provide applicants with accurate data so that they can make good choices about whether to attend law school.)

Data + realistic expectations = good choices.
Assertions + wishful thinking = a disaster in the making.



* Although, to be fair, my degree from Rice is nearer and dearer to my heart, but that's probably true of most folks' feelings about their undergraduate degrees.
** Even though I'm just an interim dean.

Do I really expect some law schools to close in the next few years? Yes. Yes, I do.

In this cross-post on our Law School Survival Manual blog, I attempt to clarify that--although the ability to discharge student loans in bankruptcy is bleak--it's not quite as bad as I glibly said it was on the Bloomberg Law podcast.  But it is bad, and something has to give.  As I indicated in my most recent essay about legal education (here), some schools aren't going to be able to justify their continued existence.  Even some very good schools are tightening their belts (see here).

And the job market for most lawyers is shrinking, not expanding.  Check out this Dealbook Q&A (here) with Michael Trotter.  His predictions are sobering.

When you combine the trends in law jobs with the increasing cost of attending law school (check out one of my favorite blogs, The Legal Whiteboard)--and you combine those two things with the fact that most student loans are non-dischargeable--you get a lot of law deans who are facing a lot of sleepless nights.  Law professors should also be nervous, because tenure won't protect them from being laid off when their law schools close. 

It's time to rethink what we mean when we talk about legal education.  That's a complex subject, but it's crucial that law professors have honest, non-turfy, non-pointy-headed-academic discussions about what we're doing and what we should be doing.

Oh, and my Buck Rogers reference in the interview?  That's from one of my favorite movies, The Right Stuff.  Here's the quote (from the imdb.com site):

Gordon Cooper: You boys know what makes this bird go up? FUNDING makes this bird go up.
Gus Grissom: He's right. No bucks, no Buck Rogers. 

Yep.  No tuition, no school.  No bucks, no Buck Rogers.

Shameless self-promotion: my most recent article about legal education.

Available at SSRN (here).

Best prep for becoming a first-year law student.

See here.  One of our new first-years has been helping people who can't afford lawyers to understand the system.  Here's what the story says about him:

Berchtold is particularly enthusiastic about a staff assistant designated to handle customers who have received home mortgage default notices and are thinking about opting for the Foreclosure Mediation Program run by the Nevada Supreme Court. That position is filled by Adam Tully, who will enter UNLV’s Boyd Law School this fall.

 Welcome, Adam--I can't wait to see the kind of good you'll do when you get your J.D., pass the bar, and can help people parse the system in your role as a lawyer.  BRAVO!

My thoughts about the recent New York Times article on law school economics.

Posted at our Law School Survival Manual blog (here).

I sure wish I could go to this conference.

See here and here.  Hat tip to TaxProf Blog.

In the "good news" category....

Jeff & I heard that our Law School Survival Manual will be available on Kindle soon (here).

A shout-out thank you to Joseph McDaniel!

Thanks for saying such nice things about me (here) on your blog (here)!  And Jeff (my hubby) and I are doing a second book in the Survival Manual series:  Law Firm Survival Guide.  Would love people's suggestions--and be on the lookout this spring for a survey from us....

Why our students at Boyd rock, part n.

See this post at the Law School Survival Manual blog (here).

It's a good day at the Van Niel-Rapoport household.

See here.

Aspen will give you a taste of Law School Survival Manual by posting one free chapter.

And we think that the chapter's a doozy--it's on how to prepare for exams.  See here for the link to Aspen1L.

More shameless self-promotion.

Click here for a podcast that gives advice to law students, and click here for a post that links the podcast to our Law School Survival Manual.

Thank you, Faculty Lounge & Laura Appleman!

Woke up today to this review of the Law School Survival Manual over at The Faculty Lounge (here).   Thanks, Laura!  You made my day!

More shameless self-promotion.

See here.

Calling all pre-law advisors!

Please email me at nancy.rapoport@unlv.edu if you'd like a review copy of our Law School Survival Manual.

Interesting news over at Legal Ethics Forum

I cross-posted this story and the related hat tip here. 

Want to vent? I have a forum for you!

Over at our other blog, Law School Survival Manual: From LSAT to Bar Exam, I'd like to take questions and comments from those of you who wonder why some students might behave the way that they do.  (For an egregious example, see here.)

So I'm looking for such things as

1. Question of the week.  Now's your chance to throw a question our way.  You can email me, or you can post a question by clicking here.  This is your chance to vent about behavior that puzzles you, frustrates you, or amuses you.  If the behavior horrifies you, then please send us . . .
2. Horror stories.  These can be from legal employers, from faculty members, OR from law students themselves.  (I have a few of my own from my law school days.)  We'll post the best horror stories (or should we say the worst ones?) on our blog.

Thanks, and Jeff & I both look forward to hearing from you!