In a difficult economy, there are no guarantees of employment, as many new law school graduates are discovering. Does this mean law schools are training too many lawyers? When I took the LSAT, way back in 1982, the essay question dealt with this issue: should law schools keep training lawyers if there were not enough jobs to go around? We test takers had to take an advocacy position in the essay, one way or the other.
A twist on this question is being played out right now in Alaburda v. Thomas Jefferson School of Law, a class action suit brought by recent graduates against the San Diego, California law school. The suit alleges that in order to keep bringing in students to pay the $135,000 plus bill for three years of law school, Thomas Jefferson School of Law has “adopted a practice of misrepresenting its post-graduation employment statistics.” The suit further alleges that the school conceals the fact that those graduates counted as “employed” in their statistics include those employed part-time and those employed in non-legal jobs.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in court; the suit may have wide-ranging implications for how law schools recruit in the future. In the meantime, caveat emptor (buyer beware) - don’t pay big bucks for a graduate education without some clear idea of whether your advanced degree will buy you the kind of salary you are going to need.
C. Megan Oltman, Esq.
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