nymag.com: Last fall, Frank Raimond quit his job and moved his belongings across town to a cluttered office suite on lower Broadway. Almost everyone he knew thought he was crazy. For six years, Raimond had worked in the New York City Law Department, the last three in a senior post handling high-profile litigation. Although his salary was modest, the benefits were good and the work was interesting. “Frank, I just don’t understand,” said his boss one afternoon. “Help me understand. Is this about money? Because if it’s about the money, I can make some inquiries.”
Friday, March 30, 2012
The Case(s) Against Law School
nymag.com: Last fall, Frank Raimond quit his job and moved his belongings across town to a cluttered office suite on lower Broadway. Almost everyone he knew thought he was crazy. For six years, Raimond had worked in the New York City Law Department, the last three in a senior post handling high-profile litigation. Although his salary was modest, the benefits were good and the work was interesting. “Frank, I just don’t understand,” said his boss one afternoon. “Help me understand. Is this about money? Because if it’s about the money, I can make some inquiries.”
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3 comments:
To me, this is perhaps one of the worst things a university or school can do. While I understand that the financial problems of schools and the need to fill student spots rises, there is a ceratin amount of trust that is accompanied with a educational institution. I know that during the application process, we recieve a lot of information outlining why a school is the best. And while I understood that these might be glorified numbers, I also understood that the numbers were based in a current fact. Kind of like a commercial, it advertises the best case senerios, but doesnt lie (that would be false advertising). Schools are trusted by the students to give them a good education and help them into the world, and if that trust is shaken like the schools in the article, I feel that they should be sued.
I'm not sure why anyone would expect law schools to NOT be manipulative. I mean, they're *law* schools.
Irony aside, to me, this seems like a case of students feeling entitled to a cushy position because they went to law school. One of my theatre professors in Iowa told us that about 90% of actors with a BFA don't make a living off of acting, but at the same time, only 10% of actors with a BFA have seriously searched for jobs for more than 6 months. Now, I'm sure these numbers aren't accurate, but the point is still strong. Law school is an investment, but it doesn't guarantee you anything. I feel like it is the students responsibility to know the job market, their realistic job prospects, and understand the debt they're getting into before committing to law school. And seek out professional opinions from those in the field, other than those from the law school--because of course the school is going to be optimistic.
School is extremely expensive, yet each year thousands of students take out loans and spend money they don’t have in order to get degrees that they assume will be worth the expense. Medical and law school would not be able to charge what they do if they did not have good job placement in high paying jobs. Plenty of schools fraudulently promise prospective students high rates of job placement. The difference is that these schools are usually DeVry University, bartending schools, and the University of Pheonix, not law schools. Law degrees are generally considered prestigious enough to almost guarantee job placement, which makes the fraud of law schools such as NYLS that much worse. I hope that the lawyers in this article are successful in revealing the fraud that exists in one of the nation’s most prestigious accreditations.
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