The National Law Journal recently convened an online forum of educators and others interested in the future of law school and the legal profession. The forum is a must-read for anyone considering law school — both the main entries and the comments sections are filled with rich and provocative commentary. The forum starts here, in a post at the bottom of the page dated 10/27/11. To follow the debate properly, you should work your way backwards up the page and to page 2 and page 1 (it’s all in reverse chronological order, with no easy way to re-order it). You can also read a “highlights” version here, at least for now (law.com has an unfortunate habit of hiding their articles behind pay walls after a little time has elapsed).

There is broad consensus among the commentators that the practice of law and legal education are (or should be) undergoing major structural changes; the debate centers on how those changes will play out, and how law schools should adapt to best serve the profession. Make no mistake: these changes will affect the practice and study of law during your career. As you make decisions regarding whether and how to pursue a legal career, it’s critical that you take into account the likely changes, and the debates surrounding the future of the legal profession.

What a crazy conglomeration of events we’ve got scheduled next week, all catering to the legal eagles out there.  I’m out of breath just listing them all.  Here’s the rundown:

*Just added*
Vermont Law School Admissions Visit
Tuesday, 11/15, at noon
E23 Machmer

Vermont Law School boasts the most respected environmental law program in the country.  Come meet with a VLS Admissions counselor to learn more about the school.

Color of Justice panel
sponsored by the National Association of Women Judges
Wednesday, 11/16, 3:00 – 5:30 pm
Western New England University School of Law (Springfield, Mass.)

A truly unparalleled opportunity to meet and hear from over a dozen female judges and attorneys about their career paths and experiences.  Click through the title for the list of jurists at all levels of our state judiciary — from the Supreme Judicial Court on down to several local trial courts. (I’m so excited about this one, I’ll be heading down to Western New England myself!)

* Just added *
CMASS Law Night
Thursday, 11/17, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Wilder Hall 201

Hear the success stories of ALANA students  from UConn Law and Western New England Law, and get your questions answered by the admissions directors from both schools (as well as your faithful pre-law advisor). Brought to you in part by the Center for Multicultural Advancement and Student Success (CMASS).

Lawyer-Alum career talk: Carrie Pollak, Esq.
Friday, 11/18 at noon
W13 Machmer

You’ll definitely want to hear UMass alum Carrie Pollak (Legal Studies and English ’04, Cornell Law ’08) talk about her experiences in both a very large law firm in Boston, and her current mid-size firm in Ithaca, New York.  Attorney Pollak, a former Army National Guard soldier, practices in the areas of environmental law and land use regulation.

UMass Mock Trial: Second Annual Thanksgiving Classic Invitational Tournament
Friday 11/18 – Sunday 11/20
Isenberg School of Management

Come see a dazzling display of legal skills from over two dozen teams, as they battle it out in a criminal trial.  Come for one round, or come for all four.  Rounds start Friday at 6:30 pm, Saturday at 9 am and 2 pm, and Sunday at 9 am.  This is for anybody who has ever thought about trying out for Mock Trial, or who just wants to watch some excellent trial skills in action.

Alissa Leonard, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid,
Boston University School of Law
Wednesday, October 26th, 3:30 pm
W13 Machmer

This is an invaluable opportunity to get information about financial aid, loans, debt repayment options and scholarships from an expert.

Wednesday, October 26th, 11:00 am – 3:00 pm
Student Union Ballroom

Meet representatives from 20 law schools right here on campus.  Attendees include: Albany, BC, BU, Brooklyn, CUNY, Hofstra, Mass. School of Law, New England Law, Northeastern, Pace, Penn State, Seton Hall, St. John’s, Suffolk, Touro, UConn, UMass Law, UNH, University of Oregon, and Western New England.

The primary purpose of law school is to train lawyers — that seems to make sense. But recent data indicate that a surprising number of law school graduates do not end up practicing law straight out of school. Prof. Brian Tamanaha, who writes frequently about legal education, portrays these numbers in stark fashion:

[F]or the class of 2009 (nine months after graduation), at 30 law schools, only 50 percent or fewer of the graduates obtained jobs as lawyers. At nearly 90 law schools, one-third or more of graduates did not land jobs as lawyers nine months after graduation.

Click through for more elaboration on the numbers, as well as a list of the schools with the lowest lawyer-employment rates.  (Prof. Tamanaha based his analysis on number provided by Law School Transparency, which in turn got the numbers from US News);  Prof. Tamanaha casts this situation as a failure of the law schools to adequately place their students in the kinds of jobs for which they went to law school.  He makes the very reasonable assumption that students attend law school solely to become lawyers.

In the comments to the blog post, several people (including myself) question this assumption, but his basic point is valid: far fewer law grads become lawyers than most people assume.  Those who don’t become lawyers fall into three categories: those who never intended to become lawyers, but went to law school for another purpose; those who initially thought they’d be lawyers, but changed their minds while in school; and those who would like to be lawyers, but can’t find work in the field.  The critical (and unanswered) question is how many people fall into each of these groups?

Prof. Tamanaha assumes that those who can’t find work are the biggest group, and there are many reasons to agree with him.  Without doubt, we know the job market for new lawyers is not as good as it once was.  But just how many law grads are still actively looking for lawyer work nine months after graduation remains an open question.

I asked representatives of two of the schools listed in Prof. Tamanaha’s post — New England Law / Boston, and Western New England University School of Law — to respond to the report, since they are such popular schools for UMass students and alumni.

Michelle L’Etoile, the Director of Admissions at New England, had this to say:

·       While the legal employment market has been challenging for several years, it is important to remember that the worldwide financial crisis has impacted almost every sector of the economy, and hiring numbers are down in almost all fields.

·       Employers who hire New England Law graduates report a very high level of satisfaction with their training and skill level.  New England Law graduates are well-prepared for the work place, as evidenced by the July 2010 bar pass rate of 94% and the extensive practical skills experience most have during law school.

·       Not all individuals who graduate from law school intend or want to practice law.  Jobs for which a J.D. is the preferred degree and where the work is connected to the legal field are a good match for many graduates.

·       New England Law is very aggressive in building connections with employers and supporting its graduates in finding employment.  It is the only law school in Boston to offer its graduating class complimentary memberships to the Boston Bar Association to assist with their networking.

·       For the Class of 2009, 63.7% of graduates were in jobs that require or rely on their law school training.  Of these, 52.9% were employed in bar passage-required jobs (e.g. practicing attorneys, law clerks), and 10.8% were in J.D.-preferred jobs (e.g. accounting firm, management consulting firm, or law school or law firm administration).  An additional 7.1% were in other professional jobs, in which their legal training may be an asset.

·       We anticipate that as the overall economy improves, more job openings that require bar passage or rely on legal training will become available.

·       Increased transparency in reporting employment data and claims is an important goal for legal education.  With that information available, it is the responsibility of each prospective student to determine whether law school is a good career decision.

Prof. William Childs, the Associate Dean for External Affairs at Western New England responded as follows:

The data is what it is, and we pride ourselves on providing our outcomes in a straightforward way.  You can in fact see the full look at our 2010 data at:

http://www1.wne.edu/assets/14/Employment_Stats_2010.pdf

We wish it was a better picture for our grads and for grads of law schools all over the country, but we think it’s important to provide that information (and have done so for several years).

A couple of comments on the post itself.  First, it’s of course not entirely true that everyone who attends law school does so to become a lawyer.  Some students (including some I’ve had) come in with the plan of getting the background to be helpful in an already-existing career (insurance, etc.).  Others decide while in law school to go another route.  For those students, law school was a benefit, not a disappointment.  But certainly, more of our graduates want and need jobs than have them.

Second, I’ll observe that we already did exactly what he suggests immediately after the data — we intentionally reduced (significantly) the entering class and expect to continue to have smaller classes for the foreseeable future.

I expect you already give your students the advice I’d give: don’t go to law school because you can’t think of something else to do.  Go only if you really want to be a lawyer (or have another purpose for that degree).  Examine the finances carefully — remember that most schools have robust scholarship programs (including ours), and that there are a lot of income-based repayment options.  But also remember that law is a lifelong career, and the JD is relevant not just nine months after graduation, but for the rest of your life.  We do firmly believe the market will turn around.

So, as I’ve urged you before, look at these numbers, take them seriously, but also inquire further — of the law schools themselves, and of new watchdog groups like Law School Transparency. Research this decision to go to law school the best that you are able.

UPDATE: For more of the conversation about transparency, check out the UMass Pre-Law Advising Facebook page.

Are you planning to apply to Georgetown Law this year?  Then you’ll want to take advantage of a group interview with the Dean of Admissions scheduled for October 4th in Boston.  Here’s what the Georgetown Law Admissions Office has to say about it:

The format is 15-20 students around a table for 50-60 minutes.  Dean Cornblatt introduces a topic for discussion and encourages the students to talk amongst themselves while he observes and moderates the discussion.  No prior knowledge or research is necessary – he tells them everything they need to know to be able to participate in the exercise.  He pays attention and takes notes and then, when the students apply during this application cycle, Dean Cornblatt’s observations of their performance during the group interview become part of the application.  We will hold 2 back-to-back sessions at 10am and 11am, respectively, on October 4th at the offices of Goodwin Proctor in Boston.  Participation will be open to any seniors or alums of your school who have applied or will be applying for Fall 2012 admission.  Group interview slots will be filled on a first-come first-served basis until the two sessions are filled.

[Applicants] should rsvp directly to us so we can keep track of attendees, and we’ll send an email confirmation to them for their time slot.  This is meant as an additional way to reach out to applicants, to personalize the admissions process at Georgetown and to get to better get to know some of the people who are applying.  Although we think it’s a great opportunity for students who can and are willing to participate, students will in no way be disadvantaged if they can’t attend or for any reason they don’t wish to take part.

Additional information is available on the attached flyer (.doc).

One of the most enjoyable parts of the annual pre-law advisors’ conference is hearing law school admissions officials share their craziest application stories — personal statements, follow-up emails and other applicant encounters that are so unimaginably outrageous that the panel is titled “You’re Not Going to Believe This.”  The behavior described is truly beyond the pale, so I’m not really worried that any of you — reasonably sane UMass Amherst students and alumni — would actually engage in anything remotely approaching this nuttiness. Rather, the panel is revealing for another reason: it makes clear each year just how much information the admissions officers are gathering about you.  You’re no doubt planning to make your application package as convincing and respectable as possible.  You may even be double-checking the privacy settings on your Facebook profile just now.  But the admissions officials go well beyond this low-hanging fruit.  You should assume that every encounter you have with anyone affiliated with the law school, every online uttering you publish, every step you take, every move you make… well, you get the idea. They’re watching you.

So what does that mean for how you conduct yourself over the next year of application madness (and beyond)?  I’ve got a few tips.

Be professional. Getting the runaround from some bored low-level staffer in a law school admissions office?  Remain calm and polite.  Any venting you might engage in will no doubt be noted in your file.  This is good practice for being a lawyer — it’s a remarkably small law world out there, and lawyers have long memories. (And low-level staffers — in courts, law firms and elsewhere — wield a tremendous amount of power.  Much more than law students and new attorneys.)  This is really easier than you can imagine: just be a good person.

Google yourself. How’s that internet profile looking? Drunk party pix and curse-filled twitter rants?  They can’t all be attributed to that girl in Iowa who has your exact same name.  Law school admissions officers only need a few more details about you to narrow the search anyway (and, thanks to your application, they possess a LOT more details about you).  Clean up your online persona.  (After you google yourself, try googling “clean up online profile” for endless links to helpful tips.)

Don’t assume you’re anonymous. So my favorite story at the conference this year came from the admissions director at a “top law school.”  He revealed that his office monitors references to his law school on the forums of  “top law school dot com” (a site I refuse to link to, due to the copious amounts of misinformation found therein). When a series of posts by one “anonymous” user were brought to his attention — posts maligning his own institution with any number of misrepresentations — he did a little sleuthing.  Based on the information the individual had posted about himself in the forums, the admissions director was able to easily match the poster to one of his applicant files. You can guess the rest.

Remember that you never know who you might run into.  In real life, I mean.  Offline.  As in the virtual world, be professional, don’t assume you’re anonymous, and don’t assume that person you’re talking to isn’t affiliated with a law school you hope to attend.

Because they’re bogus.

Because they are wildly manipulated by the law schools.

Because they may be destroying legal education.

And because they tell you almost nothing about what you need to know in order to choose a law school that’s right for you.

Seamus Brennan graduated from UMass Amherst in 2007 with a B.A. in Political Science and a minor in History. He received his law degree from Rutgers-Newark this past May, and now works in the international tax law division of a prominent financial services firm.  Seamus recently contacted the Pre-Law Advising Office, offering to be of assistance to undergrads and alums who are considering law school.  He kindly answered a few questions about his experiences for publication on the blog.

Why did you choose Rutgers-Newark?
I am from northern NJ and I wanted to attend a law school in the metro New York area. Rutgers enabled me to do this while keeping my law school debt low due to the scholarship they gave me and the low in-state tuition.

Which parts of law school surprised you?
The amount of work required the first year exceeded my expectations. Everyone I talked to who graduated from law school told me the first year was the hardest. They weren’t kidding.

What did you enjoy/dislike about law school?
Generally, the one thing I really disliked about law school was that one three or four hour exam determined your entire grade. Hours of reading and studying are distilled to one exam at the end of the semester, and that one exam is the only metric used to determine how well you did in that class.

The experience I enjoyed the most at Rutgers was participating in the federal tax clinic. The tax clinic allowed me to use what I learned in the classroom and apply it in a practical environment. As a member of the tax clinic, I represented low income tax payers before the IRS and I argued motions before the U.S. Tax Court.

What did you do during your summer internships, and how did you get those jobs?
The summer after 1L, I worked at a small law firm (25-50 attorneys) in NJ. I got this job through networking.

The summer after 2L, I split my time between the law firm where I worked the previous summer and the N.J. Tax Court. I got the job at the N.J. Tax Court by sending my resume to every N.J. Tax Court judge and calling every judge’s chambers until I got an interview.

Was it difficult to get a job?
It was very difficult to get a job. Two weeks into the on-campus interview process Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy. This made a tough process even harder. I had over 30 on-campus interviews while I was at Rutgers, with almost every type of employer: big NYC law firms, big NJ law firms, federal government agencies, state government agencies, smaller NY/NJ law firms, accounting firms, consulting firms, banks, etc.

In the end, I was able to get a great job with a prominent financial services firm doing international tax work in New York City. I believe this was possible because I showed a demonstrated interest in the field: I had great grades in all of my tax classes, I worked in the Rutgers federal tax clinic and at the NJ tax court, and I was the research assistant for a well known tax professor.

What do you enjoy/dislike about your job? How many hours a week are you working?  What kind of work are you doing?
I really enjoy my job because every day I learn something new.  I work anywhere from 50-70 hours a week, depending on what our clients are doing. I work on the tax issues that arise from cross-border M&A [mergers and acquisitions], foreign companies investing in the U.S., U.S. companies investing in other countries, and the tax treatment of different financial instruments.

Is there anything you would have done differently, or anything you’re particularly glad you did do?
I am very glad I found an area of law that interested me while I was in my first year of law school. Because of this, I knew what I wanted to do when I graduated and I could work towards this end the remaining two years.

Tuesday, Feb. 8th at 2:30 pm
Wednesday, Feb. 9th at 5:30 pm
620 Thompson

Juniors and others thinking of applying for Fall 2012 admission to law school are strongly encouraged to attend one of these sessions.  You’ll get a comprehensive overview of the admissions process, including deciding (for sure) whether you want to attend, researching law schools, LSAT prep, letters of recommendation, personal statements, and more!

Please attend one of the sessions before making a one-on-one appointment, if possible.