Valparaiso University School of Law to close

[melensdad]

Thanks for the info.
So basically the market is correcting itself.

YES

In a nutshell. Too many lawyers, not enough customers = starving lawyers. Starving lawyers = too little incentive for more people to become lawyers so law school enrollment is dropping nationally.

There is still demand for specialty law like Intellectual Property, International, Maritime, etc, but those are specialties and the jobs, while in demand, are harder to get so go only to the high achievers.

FWIW, in the list of ranked law schools by US News:

VALPO is listed as "not ranked"
IU Indianapolis/McKinney School of Law is #88
IU Bloomington/Mauer School of Law is #30
Notre Dame School of Law is #20

 

[Indyhd]

I found it pretty ironic that the footnote was actually a response given by the lawyer who was being disciplined.

 

[T.Lex]

Quick googling of that Mario Sims dude... what a guy.

 

[HoughMade]

..However, not everyone shares that view. From a recent Indiana Supreme Court disciplinary opinion footnote:

"Never, EVER would I do that or consider it with any non-lawyer. Who would do that,you? Perhaps a Valparaiso Law School lawyer or an Indiana University lawyer?"

Read the full opinion to get the context; this guy certainly looked down on us.

The guy who said that, I was seated next to him during lunch at the ISBA Litigation Symposium back in August. Having met him, maybe, once in the past, he inundated me with stories about the injustice being perpetrated against him in his disciplinary proceeding. I would simply note that as a lowly Valpo grad, I still have my license to practice, untarnished, my Mar-Hub AV preeminent rating and my 4th year in a row of being named an Indiana "Superlawyer"....while he, well.....

So, what did the former administration do? Student loans being handed out like Halloween candy, they figured the quickest way to more bucks was to admit more and more students. My 1L class was about 135 or so, by about 2009 or 2010, it was 100 more than that with, essentially, no more law jobs available and no more qualified applicants than there were in 1995. They accomplished this, primarily, by admitting students who, formerly, would have been turned down. So 3 years later, what happens to the bar passge rate and what happens to the percentage of graduates employed in law job? Right, both plummet. The vicious cycle begins. How do you keep enrollment up when students who could go somewhere with a better bar passage rate and better employment prospects rather than Valpo? You guessed it, you continue to lower standards.

Eventually, this lead to a censure by the ABA for failure to admit only qualified students. Ironically, the censure was lifted Tuesday of this week. the damage was done. A school that, when I went there, had a good regional reputation for preparing students to actually practice law in the real world became a joke. Would you pay over $40k a year for a degree from a joke school with no reputation?

The former dean took his "philosophy" to Charlotte School of Law...which has since been shut down. It is the subject of lawsuits by former students for alleged lies about employment statistics.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article169769042.html

For more on the Valpo saga: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/...ensive-law-degree-and-no-place-to-use-it.html

So, under censure by the ABA, the present administration raised enrollment standards, but the incoming class this year was 28 students for a school based on a budget of closer to 200. Financially unsustainable. I think I will be teaching one last time this spring semester....maybe. It's sad, but government money in the form of freely given loans is like heroin.

BTW- my own firm does not interview Valpo grads for new associate positions.

 

[MarkC]

The guy who said that, I was seated next to him during lunch at the ISBA Litigation Symposium back in August. Having met him, maybe, once in the past, he inundated me with stories about the injustice being perpetrated against him in his disciplinary proceeding. I would simply note that as a lowly Valpo grad, I still have my license to practice, untarnished, my Mar-Hub AV preeminent rating and my 4th year in a row of being named an Indiana "Superlawyer"....while he, well.....

So, what did the former administration do? Student loans being handed out like Halloween candy, they figured the quickest way to more bucks was to admit more and more students. My 1L class was about 135 or so, by about 2009 or 2010, it was 100 more than that with, essentially, no more law jobs available and no more qualified applicants than there were in 1995. They accomplished this, primarily, by admitting students who, formerly, would have been turned down. So 3 years later, what happens to the bar passge rate and what happens to the percentage of graduates employed in law job? Right, both plummet. The vicious cycle begins. How do you keep enrollment up when students who could go somewhere with a better bar passage rate and better employment prospects rather than Valpo? You guessed it, you continue to lower standards.

Eventually, this lead to a censure by the ABA for failure to admit only qualified students. Ironically, the censure was lifted Tuesday of this week. the damage was done. A school that, when I went there, had a good regional reputation for preparing students to actually practice law in the real world became a joke. Would you pay over $40k a year for a degree from a joke school with no reputation?

The former dean took his "philosophy" to Charlotte School of Law...which has since been shut down. It is the subject of lawsuits by former students for alleged lies about employment statistics.
Charlotte School of Law defrauded taxpayers, lawsuit says | Charlotte Observer

For more on the Valpo saga: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/...ensive-law-degree-and-no-place-to-use-it.html

So, under censure by the ABA, the present administration raised enrollment standards, but the incoming class this year was 28 students for a school based on a budget of closer to 200. Financially unsustainable. I think I will be teaching one last time this spring semester....maybe. It's sad, but government money in the form of freely given loans is like heroin.

BTW- my own firm does not interview Valpo grads for new associate positions.

Oh (formerly) bearded one- Thank you for the insider's perspective on Valpo. Again, I know several quality Valpo grads, as well as some really bad IU grads.

 

[HoughMade]

Oh (formerly) bearded one- Thank you for the insider's perspective on Valpo. Again, I know several quality Valpo grads, as well as some really bad IU grads.

...and I've beaten some arrogant Notre Dame grads (redundant) at trial...badly. Good and bad lawyers come from everywhere.

 

[T.Lex]

How do you know a lawyer went to ND Law?

(He tells you.)

 

[melensdad]

For more on the Valpo saga: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/...ensive-law-degree-and-no-place-to-use-it.html

Interesting. Thanks for this.

...I know several quality Valpo grads, as well as some really bad IU grads.

One could expect that there will be good and bad graduates from every institution in every field.

 

[HoughMade]

How do you know a lawyer went to ND Law?

(He tells you.)

My bias goes back to my first clerkship. The firm had 3 clerks: one from John Marshall, one from Valpo and one from Notre Dame. Two of the clerks could get you the law you needed and construct a nice, understandable argument. One of the clerks could lecture you on the origins of the principles from Roman civil law while completely missing the point that the client needed made.

 

[Libertarian01]

How do you know a lawyer went to ND Law?

(He tells you.)

What about Harvard, or Yale, or Stanford? Don't they sneer down at a lowly ND grad?

What is it about these "elite" schools that make them think they are better than everyone else? Is it just the money? Is it the sales pitch from their school constantly telling them how much better they are than everyone else to justify their extremely high costs?

Or, are there any schools that REALLY are that good, that have the best professors, the best interactive law programs, the best graduates not from skimming the cream but from damn good teaching?

Doug

 

[HoughMade]

I will again reveal a bias here, but there are a few different ways to make real money as a lawyer and having greater hustle and being good are only 2 of them. The other methods are a combination of getting in the right places because people pay people from the right places more because of a boatload of assumptions. Some people live up to the hype, most are average, many people don't....but still make bank because they have the right names on their resume.

Me, I never wanted to wanted to live in a big city and never wanted regular 100 hour work weeks, so the big firms were never something I even wanted to pursue....I will admit, however, that I only applied to 2 law schools and Notre Dame turned me down (geographical choices)...in the end, that doesn't bother me but I still take great joy in beating them when I do (you don't run into many Harvard grads around here). As for Yale, its reputation is for picking people who will have big names in the future (for a variety of reasons) and making sure they graduate.

 

[T.Lex]

What about Harvard, or Yale, or Stanford? Don't they sneer down at a lowly ND grad?

What is it about these "elite" schools that make them think they are better than everyone else? Is it just the money? Is it the sales pitch from their school constantly telling them how much better they are than everyone else to justify their extremely high costs?

Or, are there any schools that REALLY are that good, that have the best professors, the best interactive law programs, the best graduates not from skimming the cream but from damn good teaching?

Doug

I've worked with, and against, a few Ivys. Generally, I didn't know it until I did some research or it came up.

(BTW, the "Because he tells you" is a variation of a joke about fighter pilots, too.)

Kinda like undergrad, part of what makes a "good" law school is what you want to do. If you want to be a professor, then the big name law schools and the corresponding law review games, really helps. To get a foot in the door at big firms, it helps.

But, when it comes to actually doing a good job at the profession, a whole lot more depends on who the person's early mentors were and how much drive they have to be good.

The difference between IU-Bloomington and IU-Indy is probably representative. (I went to Indy.) Bloomington is probably more your ivory tower type law school. Indy is grittier and more experiential. It kinda depends on what you want out of it.

Having said that, now that I'm out 20 years, the law school makes no difference in whether someone becomes good at what they're doing.

 

[BiscuitsandGravy]

I like threads like this... In the end, what matters is who wins and who looses. I'll take a very good, scrappy lawyer, who listens to the client over a mediocre Ivy/ND know-it-all any day. Not to offend any Ivy/ND type folks.

 

[melensdad]

What is it about these "elite" schools that make them think they are better than everyone else? ...

Or, are there any schools that REALLY are that good, that have the best professors, the best interactive law programs, the best graduates not from skimming the cream but from damn good teaching?

Doug

Top Schools = Highest rates of passing the bar exams ... highest test scores on the LSATs

So they take the bright kids, have great faculty, teach them well, and they end up with great results. But again, they are starting with the brightest students and they have some of the finest faculty.

What I see is, that outside of the top 15-20 schools, the profession is very regional. And some schools send students into large firms, some into government work, some into small practice, etc. Looking at employment data from schools is interesting.

Ohio State gave my daughter a full ride but sends very few graduates to work in large firms (which is what she wants to do) and very few graduates to work outside of the state of Ohio. My daughter got scholarships at several east coast schools, most ranked higher than IU-Mauer in Bloomington ... but IU-Mauer has a fairly strong alumni association in Chicago and she wants to practice in Chicago. She got full scholarships from Boston, Wm & Mary, Wake Forest, Washington & Lee, and several others but they have virtually ZERO presence in Chicago so no contacts to help with placement, no reputation in the area, etc. So she picked IU-Mauer for its proximity to Chicago and its fairly high ranking, its fairly high number of students it puts in large firms, its fairly high number of students who get employment out of state, and its strong alumni association in Chicago. It would be a bad choice if she wanted to practice law on the East or West coasts or in Texas.

Not sure why the practice of law is regional but perhaps it has something to do with 50 different state bar exams, different legal requirements, etc.

 

[melensdad]

...

 

[HoughMade]

The highest bar passage rates are not Ivy League schools. the top 4 are:

Univ. of Wisc.
Marquette
Univ. of South Dakota, and
Baylor.

Harvard comes in #5

Other Ivy league:

#7 Columbia
#8 Yale
#10 Univ. of Pa.
#21 Cornell

Stanford doesn't crack the top 25.

Honestly, I'm convinced that if I studied full time for a couple of months, I could easily have passed the bar without law school. Maybe a state or two still allow that.

Getting into the "right" law school is all about the "right" undergrad, the "right" high school...going back to the "right" pre-school. One wonders how anyone with a family that focused on a child's success could produce anything but "winners"....but then there's the student himself.

I highly doubt that the instruction at upper echelon schools is of an appreciably better quality than anywhere else. However, they have the luxury of only accepting the students that they predict will be successful.

How hard would it be to put together a great basketball team if there were hundreds of thousands of people trying out and you and only a couple of other schools got first pick and everyone else had to wait until you made your choices?

Pick the smart, hard working kids and the rankings will follow, though every school, everywhere probably has a few stars in them that got overlooked because they went to a smaller undergrad or some such thing.

 

[4sarge]

I thought that ALL of the Starving Lawyers made their Millions after becoming Elected Politicians

 

[T.Lex]

The highest bar passage rates are not Ivy League schools. the top 4 are:

Univ. of Wisc.
Marquette
Univ. of South Dakota, and
Baylor.

Harvard comes in #5

Other Ivy league:

#7 Columbia
#8 Yale
#10 Univ. of Pa.
#21 Cornell

Doesn't Marquette still have the deal where if you practice in Wisconsin, you don't have to take the bar at all? That might skew that stat.

 

[printcraft]

...........
I highly doubt that the instruction at upper echelon schools is of an appreciably better quality than anywhere else. However, they have the luxury of only accepting the students that they predict will be successful.......

They DO have a vested interest in keeping those numbers up. Their program might not even be as difficult as some of the lower tier schools.

 

[MarkC]

I've worked with, and against, a few Ivys. Generally, I didn't know it until I did some research or it came up.

(BTW, the "Because he tells you" is a variation of a joke about fighter pilots, too.)

Kinda like undergrad, part of what makes a "good" law school is what you want to do. If you want to be a professor, then the big name law schools and the corresponding law review games, really helps. To get a foot in the door at big firms, it helps.

But, when it comes to actually doing a good job at the profession, a whole lot more depends on who the person's early mentors were and how much drive they have to be good.

The difference between IU-Bloomington and IU-Indy is probably representative. (I went to Indy.) Bloomington is probably more your ivory tower type law school. Indy is grittier and more experiential. It kinda depends on what you want out of it.

Having said that, now that I'm out 20 years, the law school makes no difference in whether someone becomes good at what they're doing.

That has been my experience; Bloomington seems more interested in teaching the theoretical and academic stuff. IU-Indianapolis seems more functional, for the most part. We still had to read about squibs in marketplaces and 'splody fireworks in train stations, though.