Comments on: Too Many Law Schools?

By: tom

tom — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 00:56:58 +0000

John:
Very simple…law schools remain cash cows for universities. Unlike medical, dental, and engineering schools that need lots of expensive equipment, you can run a law school fairly “efficiently;” pack 100+ high-tuition paying bodies in a huge lecture hall, park one professor in the front (and you have your pick of extremely sharp Harvard/Yale/Michigan etc. JD grads who are desperate to leave “biglaw” for the security and freedom of academia), and bingo, you are all set. Law libraries themselves are proving to be of minimal value, as much research takes place on-line anyway.
The problem is that too, too many students are willing to gamble on their future by putting themselves in debt up to their eyeballs with relatively little chance of getting a high-paying job that permits them to pay these debts off in a reasonable manner (i.e., that permits them to pay rent, food, etc.).
It really is a classic supply/demand issue…until a substantial number of individuals stop applying to law school, we aren’t going to see much change in the number of universities who look upon law schools as reliable income streams.

By: John Wladis

John Wladis — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 04:49:36 +0000

Too many law schools? Three institutions in somewhat close proximity don’t appear to think so.

Wilkes (Scranton-Wilkes-Barre), Binghamton and St John Fisher (Rochester) all are contemplating opening law schools.

What is behind the sudden popularity in starting new law schools?

John W

By: Mike Madison

Mike Madison — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:31:06 +0000

Eric,

The overvaluation problem is significant and pervasive enough that I think that characterizing the problem as consumer education doesn’t do it justice.

In general I’ve come to describe these phenomena as “Hannah Montana problems,” after the crowd of parents who sued ticket brokers who bought Hannah Montana tickets using bots, then jacked up the prices of scalped tickets.

What the characterization does for me is this:

Sometimes, what appears to be a Hannah Montana problem is no problem at all. That’s my reaction to Hannah Montana fans; concert tickets are of marginal concern in social welfare terms; to me, Hannah Montana ticket scalping is Coase in action. (That’s easy for me to say; my children are too old to be HM fans.)

Sometimes, a Hannah Montana problem exists at a middle level that can be solved in part via consumer education. And sometimes the amount of money involved and the amount of harm done means that education is not enough.

Perhaps some of our colleagues who study behavioral economics could weigh in on this.

Mike

By: Eric Goldman

Eric Goldman — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:47:35 +0000

Isn’t this just a consumer education issue? In other words, a prospective student, fully informed, might happily sign up for law school knowing that he/she is destined for a “low paying” job.

The problem I’m having is that it’s difficult to do valuations when there is a lottery effect–going in, most students will think they are going to get the jobs that only 10% (or less) will get, which distorts prospective economic assessments of a law degree’s value. Eric.

By: Nancy Rapoport

Nancy Rapoport — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:17:59 +0000

There’s no real reason to have over 190 law schools, all of which teach essentially the same thing, roughly the same way, at roughly the same price, especially when the price keeps creeping up. The debt loads for many law students is staggering, and despite the placement figures at the top of the USNWR rankings, most law graduates aren’t getting those exhorbitant salaries, so they are having a hard time servicing their (nondischargeable in bankruptcy) educational loans. At some point, the system will break. It’s really a question of whether there’s a controlled re-thinking of the problem (we here in Las Vegas have no problem doing planned implosions of creaky old buildings to make way for the new) or some sudden disaster that forces a change. Mike, I’ve been mulling over all of your proposals for quite some time now, and I think they deserve serious consideration.

By: Stephen M (Ethesis)

Stephen M (Ethesis) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 14:02:09 +0000

Back in 1996, when I was still somewhat incapacitated (having buried three children in about five years, all from different causes), I was asked to participate in a thought project.

My rough draft contribution is at http://adrr.com/law0/pr3n.htm

But you touch on points that have still not made much progress or change.